


Put Another Dime

by MissSunFlower94



Category: Strange Magic (2015), Strange Magic - Fandom
Genre: A bunch of my tumblr fics that need a home, F/M, Ficlet Collection, some AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 17:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 41,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3617421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSunFlower94/pseuds/MissSunFlower94
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In that Jukebox Musical, baby!</p><p>A collection of one shots that I had on tumblr that need a home here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

There was a long period of uncomfortable silence while the two of them tried to work out the bloody riddle to no avail. The only thing keeping Bog from grabbing Sugar Plum’s prison and shaking the daylights out of it was the knowledge that the princess sitting next to him wouldn’t have thought much of his strategy. He didn’t want her to think that he was he so impulsive when he was angry. She had constantly kept him on his guard, continuously surprised him, confused him, impressed him. She knew it, too - yes, it was best to give her as little ammo as possible.

And in the meantime, at least Dawn had stopped singing.

"It  _is_  Dawn, isn’t it?” He hadn’t meant to voice the thought, and now she had turned to him, startled. He elaborated, “Your sister’s name. I thought I heard you call her that when I-“

"Kidnapped her?" She deadpanned.

He winced. “Took her as collateral.”

"Yes," she nodded. "Kidnapped her." He scowled and she waved a hand to keep him from responding. "And yes, her name is Dawn. She was born at sunrise and-" she paused, looking around her with an overdramatic concentration. "You…  _do_  get sun here, don’t you?”

"Funny," he said.

She grinned. “What? I mean it’s so dark-“

"That’d be because it’s night."

"You know what I mean," she told him, stubbornly. Her eyes were sparkling again, as they had when they’d torn apart the romantic setting around them, as they had when they had fought each other in his throne room. As they apparently did when she was teasing him. He saw she had found an odd… delight in their interactions, in finding someone with whom she shared a strange sort of comradery. He found himself knowing how she felt; it was a nice, confusing, terrifying feeling. 

"So it’s Dawn," he clarified, clearing his throat. "And…"

She looked at him blankly for a moment, then, “Oh.” then, “ _Ohhh_. I’m- um- I’m Marianne.”

"Marianne," he repeated, testing the name with the image of her that he had.

She shifted, uncomfortable. “It’s a flower, there’s some in the meadows that are the same purple as-” she spread her wings out just a little, flexing them and letting them rest again. “I’d say it’s silly, but it’s certainly better than yours.” She paused again, and he caught the smallest appreciative smile at his glare. “ _Is_  Bog your name anyway? Or is it a title?”

"Uhhhm," he waved his hand vaguely. "…  _both_?”

She - Marianne - looked skeptical but shrugged, leaning back against the table again. “It’s crazy, you know. We’re both rulers - well, I’m going to be - of neighboring lands and we didn’t even know each other’s names.”

She spoke absently, looking at the ceiling and Bog wasn’t sure she was actually talking to him. Still he thought about her words - aware that it as the night progressed it was becoming increasingly harder for him to imagine that not a day before he hadn’t spared a second considering the kingdom beside his, much less its two princesses. That knowing the name  _Marianne_ would have meant nothing to him.

She seemed to sense him looking at her, and turned. He gave her a smile he hoped said  _'it's nice to meet you_ , Marianne _’_  because he certainly didn’t think he could have said so aloud.

He was rewarded when Marianne’s smile returned the sentiment. 


	2. Movie Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which in two people in love gleefully mock other people in love
> 
> A modern au

"You are a lifesaver," Marianne told Bog as he came back into their living room, handing her a beer before returning to his seat between her and Dawn. The couch was already small when it came to two people, but the three fit comfortably. Dawn suspected this was largely due to how close the two were sitting. As for Dawn’s boyfriend, Sunny, he sat on an extra cushion on the floor at Dawn’s feet, the bowl of popcorn in his lap. 

Bog smirked at his girl, then glanced at the screen. “So… what did I miss?”

Marianne waved her hand. “Rose’s family doesn’t approve of Jack Dawson and have forbidden her from seeing him,” she said loftily.

"Ah, did they now?" he rolled his eyes. "Do families ever approve in these things?"

"Oh no. Rule of drama, you know. Ten out of ten white suburban dads must disapprove.”

"Are we counting your father amongst them?"

"Ohhh yes."

"Will you two HUSH?" Dawn asked. "They’re about to have a moment!"

”Another one?” They asked in unison. Dawn groaned.

From in front of her she heard Sunny’s soft laugh. “I told you not to watch this one. Marianne’s always like this.”

He was right, of course. The Marianne-Dawn-Sunny Movie Night was a longstanding bimonthly tradition that went back as long as their friendship. They alternated choosing the movies, and Dawn’s picks always tended to produce groans and gags from her romance-less elder sister. 

It hadn’t always been like that. While Marianne had never been the romantic Dawn was she had once been more willing to sit through the sappy romances, and kept her sarcastic comments to a minimum. When her heart had been broken - shattered more like - she spent those movie nights in a near catatonic silence, usually leaving halfway through, claiming a headache or sleepiness. Eventually that turned in a cynical mocking of all things love, but at least she was laughing again. Dawn would roll her eyes and let her have it.

She had thought though, now that her sister had fallen in love once again, now that she had someone who made her happier than Dawn could remember seeing her in a very long time, that perhaps they could make it through something cute in peace.

No such luck. No, instead, Dawn was cursed with two romance-hating idiots - who were madly in love.

"They say each other’s names like, every third word," Marianne complained.

Bog raised his bottle. “Drink every time they do?” He proposed.

"Do you want to die of alcohol poisoning? Every. Third. Word." She threw her head back. "Oh, Jack! Jack! Jack!" 

"Oh, Rooose," He echoed, rolling the ‘R’, the remainder of his scottish accent coming out strong on the word. Marianne collapsed into laughter. Dawn glared.

From where she sat, Dawn couldn’t see how they could get off mocking the lovey-dovey relationship on the screen, the way they were behaving. Her sister was lounging against the arm of the couch, dressed for sleep in basketball shorts and a large t-shirt she suspected was Bog’s at one point, her bare legs were in his lap and he was absent stroking her calf with one free hand. It was so casually intimate they probably didn’t even realize it. 

“‘Oh, Jack! Paint me like one of your french girls!’” Marianne hadn’t stopped her mocking. 

Bog smirked. “Not now, love. Not in front of the children.”

Dawn and Sunny both turned to him. “I am not a child!” They said together, smiling quickly at each other. 

Marianne and Bog both laughed, and ignored her completely. A few minutes later, Bog - all for having apparently never seen Titanic before - seemed to have enough grip on the situation to know what was coming and clasped his hand suddenly in front of Dawn’s eyes. A second later she heard Marianne groan.

"Oh, euugh. Dawn, cover your eyes. Bog, cover Dawn’s eyes!"

"Two steps ahead of you, tough girl." Bog said, and Dawn could hear his self-satisfied smile and smacked his arm before returning to trying to pull his large hand off of her face. He laughed.

"Both of you are acting like I’ve never seen this movie before!" She groaned. "And besides, Marianne is only barely two years older than me!"

"Oh, is that so?" Bog said thoughtfully. 

But instead of her blindfold being removed she heard Marianne’s sudden gasp followed by laughter. “You ass!” Her sister said through her laughter, and Dawn realized that Bog had proceeded to cover Marianne’s eyes as well. Dawn was able to peel his hand away just as Marianne did the same They both punched his arm and he raised his hands. “You ass,” her sister said again. “You have no excuse - you definitely know I’ve seen worse than this.”

Sunny groaned, dropping his head. “Oh c’mon, you guys. That I did not need to know.”

"Welcome to my life," Dawn said, patting him on the shoulder. "Now can we please just watch the movie in peace?" 

Her sister sighed. “If we must. The ship’s going to go down soon, anyways.”

"Does it get good then?" Bog asked, hopeful.

"Meh. Better.”

"You GUYS!" 

"Alright, alright!" He said quickly. Dawn smiled; she liked that she could scare her sister’s boyfriend. It was a good skill to have. "We’ll be quiet!"

And they were, or, at least, were quieter. Marianne shifted so she leaned her head on his shoulder and Dawn could hear their whispered commentary and didn’t bother trying to listen to them. They both finished another beer each and split one between them before the movie was over and Marianne, at least, was a little tipsy. 

"Well, uhm, thank you for that, ah, adventure." Bog was saying as the credits played. "Bed, love?" Marianne nodded and he grinned, getting to his feet. He took her hand pulled her to her feet and then, in one fluid motion, lifted her over his shoulder. And without a word, without even another glance at them, he went on to carry her up the stairs to their room. 

Not halfway up Dawn heard him mutter, “Now, what was that about painting you like one of my french girls?”

She hopped to her feet quickly, turning to Sunny. “So! We should- we should go um, get ice cream! Yeah! Now.”

He was already standing. “Right behind you!”

Dawn shut off the DVD player and grabbed her jacket, catching her sister’s laugh echoing from upstairs just before leaving. She smiled; while the dynamics may have changed over the years, movie night never failed to be entertaining.


	3. Affection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few years post movie

It was quite the picture they made; the younger princess of the fairy kingdom, all small and sweet, wound around the fearsome Bog King like some kind of pastel vine. He was making no move to get rid of her, the scowl on his face almost comically forced as she settled herself, draped around his shoulders.  The whole spectacle being watched by Dawn’s sister and the King’s lover, Marianne, who was beside herself in laughter at her partner’s expense.

And Sunny, who sat in the shade a ways off. Several other elves were gathered nearby watching as the Fairy Kingdom returned from their winter Migration.

It had only been the second Migration since the Fateful Night that had changed everything between the two kingdoms - and since the two princesses officially began their own respective relationships. Sunny and Dawn had weathered many migrations before (leaving a best friend was as bad as leaving a lover), but Marianne and the Bog King had not. The King of the Dark Forest, having the benefit of wings of his own, hadn’t bothered waiting for the procession to reach him. Marianne had tore away from the group to embrace him in mid-air. 

Dawn had followed immediately after.

“That’s some reunion,” Pare commented casually.

He grinned, watching Dawn saying something to the Bog King that was making both him and Marianne blush, her older sister was trying to cover the blonde’s mouth with her hand. “Yeah.”

“And you’re… fine with that?”

It took Sunny a full second to understand what Pare meant. “Wait, with- with that?” He asked incredulously. Above them, his best friend playfully pinched the Bog King’s nose and flew up out of his reach. Both elves could see his usual scowl had melted into a gentle smile.

Pare shrugged. “She seems awfully… affectionate. I didn’ know if-”

But he was laughing already. “I’m not easily jealous.” Pare made a skeptical noise and Sunny raised his hands. “Alright, the Love Potion thing doesn’t really help my cause, I know, but trust me on this. There’s no reason  _not_  to be fine with that. I mean, it’s strange and I won’t say I…  _understand_  it but,” he shrugged. “Dawn says she mostly likes that he makes Marianne happy. He makes her happy, too but why would that bother me? I know she loves me. I trust her. And then there’s that.” He gestured again. 

Dawn had done enough clinging and moved aside to let Marianne have access to her lover again. The Bog King gathered the older princess in his arms again, his embrace fierce and protective and soft and gentle like she was something he didn’t want to release and didn’t want to break simultaneously.

Dawn hovered to the side, gleefully watching her sister unashamedly in love. After a moment, she looked away noticing the collected audience and caught Sunny’s eye. He saw her eyes light up, her cheeks redden and the wide grin she got whenever she looked at him - and only him. She wiggled her fingers cheerfully.

Sunny returned the wave, feeling a particularly foolish smile of his own rise to his face. “Besides,” he added happily. “She’ll get to me soon enough.”


	4. C'mon Hold Me Tight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it's been a long night, and a longer morning and please just let these children sleep.
> 
> Immediately post-movie.

Marianne’s needs were small; She wanted to see Bog, and she wanted to go to sleep. 

Unfortunately, neither of these things were an option for her. After the fanfare and celebration that accompanied she and the Bog King’s extremely public admission of their feelings, the king of the fairies finally came out of his near catatonic shock and demanded and explanation from both of his daughters.

Which took considerably longer than anyone might have thought. 

Marianne stifled a yawn behind one hand, exhaustion making her particularly irritated and uncomfortable with the whole situation. Yes, it was important to hear Sunny express his regret about what he had done and confirm that it had been Roland’s idea from the start. Yes, her father needed to hear that Dawn had fallen in love with the Bog King under the love potion and that her love for Sunny had broken it. It just felt… odd saying all of it so matter-of-factly; there was so much had happened that night and giving it this brief run-down felt cheap. Marianne had felt her face grow very red as she coughed out that over the course of a single night she had fallen in love with Bog because saying it that way felt so  _absurd_.

The company telling the convoluted, night-long tale was Marianne, Dawn, and Sunny. The elf had only been included - very, very grudgingly on the king’s part - because he had been the one to retrieve the love potion and knew parts of the story the girls did not. As their father put it, there was nothing that had happened around the Bog King that either Dawn or Marianne weren’t present for, and therefor, he needn’t be troubled with having to have any part in the explanation. 

That’s what he said, but Marianne knew he just wanted Bog away from her for as long as he could feasibly keep them apart. Which was fine, she told herself firmly, because once this was over nothing was going to keep her away from him.

In the meantime, she almost envied him. With some not-so-gentle prodding by both his daughters, Marianne’s father had had no choice but to let Bog stay in the palace at least for one day and one night, while things got a bit more… settled. Bog accepted the gift with as much pleasure as the fairy king had felt giving it, but at least he was nearby.

And he was sleeping. Lucky bug… thing.  

* * *

The Bog King was not sleeping.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t  _want_  to. He did. And he  _would_  be sleeping if he weren’t in a fairy palace, a fairy room that smelt over-sweet and had far too many windows - with no real concept of curtains - and a fairy bed- _thing_  that couldn’t possibly be comfortable. He wasn’t sure how anyone could sleep in this setting, no matter how tired. 

So yes, the Bog King wanted to sleep. Specifically, he wanted to sleep in  _his_  own kingdom. More specifically, he wanted to sleep in his - now non-existent - castle, in his kingdom.

And he wanted to take Marianne with him.

Not like  _that_.

He only just wanted to be… near her. And wanted her near him, as often as possible. He wasn’t accustomed to wanting someone, just wanting her company, her conversation, her smile. He wasn’t entirely sure he liked the feeling but he was far past fighting it.

Bog didn’t know how long he’d been in the room, crouched awkwardly on the stone floor. Marianne had said nothing about coming to see him later, had probably gone to sleep like a sane person, but after some unknown period of time a knock came at the door and Bog didn’t have to guess who it was.

Marianne stood, hands fisted at her side, rocking back on her heels. She looked dead on her feet, absolutely bone-weary exhausted - and every bit as nervous as they both had been before confessing their feelings. “Hi.” 

“H-”

He was cut off as she suddenly lunged for him. He was too startled to react and still had his staff on the far wall. Had her intention been to attack he would have been defenseless. Thankfully, it was not. 

Although he was just as defenseless towards the embrace he found himself in. He threw his hands back, unsure what to do with them. It wasn’t as though, after the night he’d just had, Bog was particularly unused to fairies throwing themselves into his arms. But this would always be different than with the love-drugged Dawn, the genuinity of this affection leaving him speechless and unable to react. 

Marianne sensed his lack of reciprocation and he could have kicked himself as she let him go, coughing awkwardly, her cheeks all the way to the tips of her ears going pink. “Um, hi,” she said again. She ran her fingers through her hair. “Sorry, I just-” 

She was uncomfortable. He couldn’t have that. Bracing himself, Bog took her wrist and pulled her back to him. While startled at first, Marianne relaxed quickly, wrapping her arms around him, all but melting into him. Bog had the distinct impression that, like him, Marianne hadn’t had much in the way of physical affection recently but where he reacted with awkwardness and unsurety, she held tight to anything, any small touch, she was given.  

After a few seconds Bog felt more comfortable with the whole situation. She had sought him out, was happy to see him, and that alone made him happier than he could have found words for.

“How was your meeting?” He asked dryly, just to say something. 

Marianne groaned. “As bad as you’d expect. But we’ve averted all-out war so, you know… there’s that.” 

“There is that.” Absently, he stroked the back of her head - her hair so impossibly soft beneath his hand. She fit so nicely in his arms, her head resting neatly on his chest. It all felt… nice. New, very strange, but yeah. Nice.

“I’m sure your staying here isn’t helping dad’s mood,” she added.

He snorted. “Well, you’ll not have to worry about that after tomorrow.”

Marianne pulled back sharply and he could have kicked himself again. He had just gotten used to where they’d been. “You’re leaving?”

“This isn’t exactly  _my_  place,” he said.

“Well,  _your_  place isn’t exactly in working order.”

“Exactly why I need to be back in my forest as soon as I can. Construction needs to begin as soon as possible.”

Marianne had let go of him entirely - to his disappointment - crossing her arms. “Okay, that’s all well and good, but you’re not going to have a livable place in a day. Where are you going to slee-  _stay_  in the meantime?”

“I’m capable of-”

She interrupted him. “Sure, sure you are, but you could also just stay here and save yourself all the trouble.”

Bog rolled his eyes. “What happened to my being here ‘not helping your father’s mood’?”

“My father’s mood can suck it,” Marianne said shortly. He choked back a laugh, and she smiled crookedly. “I love him, really, but maybe your spending, at least, your nights here will… help him come to terms with- um, us.”

Bog was torn between pleasure at being an ‘ _us_ ’ with her, and extreme displeasure at spending any more time around the fairy king than he could help. And, with a glance around the room, spending any nights attempting to sleep in this place wasn’t particularly appealing either.

Marianne caught on to the displeasure part and raised an eyebrow. “Is my hospitality unwelcome?”

“Noo,” he said, aware of how utterly unconvincing he sounded. 

She stepped closer to him again. “Is my company unwelcome?”

“Wha- NO! I mean, no. No, a’course not, Marianne.”

She smiled, pleased with flustering him, and reached to hook her arms around his neck. He let himself be pulled down to her, letting his eyes close…

And then he yawned.  _Damn it_.

Marianne broke away, laughing, and then laughing harder as he glared at her. “I- I’m sorry,” she said, sobering. “I forgot I woke you up.” 

“You didn’t wake me up,” he said. “I wasn’t sleeping.”

She blinked. “You weren’t? This whole time? Oh my god, Bog! I would have given my wings to get some time to sleep and you haven’t even-!”

Bog shrugged. “Couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

He made a noncommittal gesture, vaguely indicating the room and the flower bed that had been given to him. It took Marianne a moment to catch on but then made a disgusted noise. 

“Seriously? It’s not  _good enough_  for you?”

“That’s not-”

“Never mind that you’re nearly falling over yourself in exhaustion. Noo, can’t sleep in a _fairy_  room.”

“I’m no’- Mari-”

She ignored him, moving to sit on the bed stubbornly. “Oh, yes. Like sleeping on knives. I’m sure this is sooo much worse than what your kingdom has.”

“It is, in fact,” he deadpanned, trying not to smile as it would ruin the effect. He liked their verbal sparring every bit as much as he enjoyed their physical fighting. Her dry humor and biting sarcasm, their rallying back in forth in a battle of wits was something he was unused to and something that would never cease to delight him.

“What do goblins sleep on, anyways?” 

“Moss, usually. Mushrooms - the, er,  _non-sentient_  kind. And bog… plants.”

“Bog plants?” Marianne asked curiously, catching the pause he hadn’t meant to add.

“Bog flowers,” he bit out.

She laughed, falling back against the flower she lay on. “Of course, because bog flowers are much  _much_ softer beds than fairy flowers. Obviously.”

“They are!” He said defensively.

She laughed louder. “I don’t believe you.”

“Well, then I just havena choice but to  _show_ you,” he said. Marianne looked up sharply and they were both silent for a second before he quickly coughed out, “Some day.”

They both looked away from each other, blushing like children. Silently he cursed his exhaustion again for making him lose control of his tongue. It had been a long night. And a longer morning yet. 

Marianne cleared her throat and waved a hand, gesturing to the rest of the flower. “Come on - come here.”

“Now?”

“Yes. Did you even try sleeping on it before deciding it was  _unsuitable_?” He said nothing and she sighed. “Come  _on_ , Bog.” She moved over a little. “It’s not like it’s not big enough.” 

She was right; the flower bed looked large enough to hold five or six fairies. Even with his size, the two of them would fit on it more than comfortably enough. Marianne scooted a little more, and he sat, uncomfortably on the bed beside her. 

“There.” She said, sounding satisfied. “Is it so awful?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” he said dryly. It wasn’t…  _awful_ , but it certainly wasn’t anything he’d have sought out. It was better than the floor, but that was the highest praise he was going to give it. 

She snorted. “Well, let me know when you make up your mind - preferably before I wind up passed out.”

She had closed her eyes and therefor missed the way he swallowed hard and his face colored at the slightest implication that they might both end up sleeping there. Together. Whether he liked the implication or not was covered up entirely by how it flustered him. “You- uh, you  _could_  go sleep in your own room.”

“I could, but I’ve decided I’m not leaving until you go to sleep.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“Oooh ouch.”

He chuckled, settling so he was more reclined on the bed, watching her -somewhat indulgently. “Besides, maybe I don’t  _want_  you to go.”

“Then you’ve doomed us both to an even longer morning,” she said loftily, throwing an arm over her eyes dramatically. “Either way I don’t want to leave soon anyways. God knows, my dad will try to tell me that I shouldn’t have come  _bother_  you or something crazy like that.”

Bog winced. “So that really  _didn’t_  go well, did it?” 

“I already said it was bad,” she said through a yawn. After a moment, she smiled. “I did get to say ‘ _But dad, I love him_!’ in those exact words, too. I always thought Dawn would get that line.”

Bog couldn’t help the way his heart leaped. “Ab-about me?”

“No about Roland. Yes, about you, you idiot.” She rubbed her eyes, and shifted. She was falling asleep, he realized, now that she had finally lay down - probably for the first time since everything that had happened. He still wasn’t sure he was comfortable with her sleeping in his - well not  _his_  bed, but for all intensive purposes where he was to sleep. But this was also the most… relaxed Bog had ever seen Marianne, and he was too enthralled to really do anything to interrupt it.

And one could only watch someone else sleep for so long before thinking it wasn’t a bad idea.

* * *

Marianne woke from the nap she hadn’t known she was taking, the shadows in the room indicating it was mid-afternoon. She rubbed her eyes, feeling a little bit like she had been trampled a lizard - wasn’t that how naps always ended up working out? - and tried to remember what day it was. 

She shifted, thinking about sitting up when it registered that she was both not in her room, and not alone. Looking down, she saw the long arm draped loosely around her waist ending in a large dark claw and the events of the previous night came rushing back in. Marianne realized that the king of the Dark Forest, feared by everyone in her kingdom, was at her back holding her, cradling her gently against him as they both slept. 

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep in the bed he had been given. She couldn’t quite remember what they’d been talking about when she’d conked out and could only hope he hadn’t been awake for much longer than her. Still, Marianne wasn’t embarrassed that she had awoke in this situation with him. A little surprised, surely - she hadn’t expected this level of physical intimacy to come from him, but then he might just be more affectionate in sleep - but nothing more. It felt nice, warm,  _loving_  in a way she had always craved, somewhere in the back of her mind and heart.

Marianne felt herself smile, and tried to snuggle herself closer to the Bog King and maybe let herself sleep some more. She didn’t know why she had woken up but if there was nothing pressing, there was no reason not to take advantage of this peace. However, either he was waking up himself or Bog was a lighter sleeper than she, and she felt him shift and groan quietly, slowly coming to.

“Mmm Marianne-” He murmured. She flushed a little, liking the way her name sounded in his sleepy brogue. He tightened his hold on her pulling her closer before she felt him freeze, apparently waking enough to realize exactly where he was and what was happening. He began some mumbling that sounded like it might be an apology if it were comprehensible, and started to lift his arm. 

“Bog,” she said, her voice a whispered croak more than anything. “Y’don’- You don’t-” she yawned, losing the sentence’s train.

“Don’t wha?” He asked.

“You don’t have to move.”

There was enough silence to where Marianne thought he might have fallen asleep again. And then. “You’re sure?”

She nodded, and returned to snuggling back as close as she could be to him without it crushing her wings. “Mmm-hmm. This is nice.”

“Really?”

She almost laughed at the incredulous joy in that one word. “Bog, go to sleep,” was all she said instead. 

And together, they both did.


	5. A Part of How Life Goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marianne doesn't like thunderstorms. Bog does what he can to help with that.

Marianne was never so happy for the lack of windows in Bog’s new castle - in the throne room especially - as she was in that moment. Even so, windows existed down one hallway, and she could see the white light break through as much as she had tried not to look for it, and a second later the entire castle shook with a loud, explosive thunder. 

The sky had been a thick dark grey all afternoon, the air heavy and smelling of dampness and humidity, and Marianne had known this was coming. It had shown, she was on edge, twitchy, unfocused. She had thought, perhaps, sparring with her lover might help ease her nerves and it had, briefly. The coming storm was put out of her mind…

…until just then.

Another crack of thunder and she jumped, distracted, and Bog’s staff hit her square across her shoulders. She dropped, landing with as much grace as she was capable of. She rubbed the afflicted spot and tried to ignore the fact that she was shivering. Bog’s new castle was built, like his old, in a hollowed out tree, but it’s walls were thicker, sounder…  _safer_. She told herself all of this, even as she heard the pounding of heavy rain pounding hard above her head, another roll of thunder that shook her down to her bones. She was safe, everything was fine.

“Marianne?” Bog had landed before her, taking in her obvious distracted state. It wasn’t like her, and she knew it. It wasn’t like her to be afraid of anything. She hated it. “Are you… alright?”

She sheathed her sword, aware - just as he was - that sparring was over. She was no good this out of it and he wouldn’t risk hurting her by mistake. “I’m fine!” She said, a little wildly, rubbing her arms. “Just- just fine, really! Absolutely fine! Fine!”

“So I’ve gathered,” he said, dryly. “Now, what’s _really_  wrong, tough girl?”

Marianne made a face at him, wishing vainly that she were a better liar, and that Bog didn’t know her as well as he did. “Nothing, Bog. It’s really, really no-” her words were drown out by the next clap of thunder, so loud it shook the hanging light fixtures in the throne room. Marianne bit her lip, trying not to react. 

But the Bog King, damn him, caught her flinch and made the connection. “Is it the storm? The castle is secure, Mari - I’ve made sure of that. We’re fine in here.”

Marianne tried to smile, tried to nod. Her teeth were chattering - actually chattering, damn  _them_  - and she was still shaking against her will. “I know that,” was all she said, hoping it didn’t sound as mulish aloud as it did in her head; she didn’t want him to think she didn’t appreciate what he was trying to do. It was just that it was so completely pointless. He was hardly the first person to tell her everything would be fine, to apply logic to her fear. It didn’t work. It never worked. 

Bog was watching her, carefully reading her body language, trying to figure out exactly what to do with this Marianne that he had never seen before. She could tell he was unhappy to see her this way and it made her that much angrier at her own damn emotions. “Is this… Is this a fairy thing?” He ventured at last. “To be-  _wary_  of storms?”

He avoided the word  _afraid_  for her sake and she almost smiled. “N-No. Well, I mean, yes, it’s an instinct, obviously. We can’t do rain,” she fluttered her wings unnecessarily - they both knew what she meant. “But it’s - for me, it’s… more than that.”

Motioning for her to follow, Bog went to sit on his throne. Marianne did so, sitting on the arm and wrapping her arms around her knees. “Can ye tell me about it?”

She nodded. Talking was helping, if only a little, in getting her thoughts out of circling in mindless terror. “I- When Dawn and I were younger - right after she’d gotten her wings - we went… exploring. We took our time, took lots of stops for her to rest. Young wings can’t fly long distances all at once and all. So when we saw the- storm coming we were too far away to make it back to the palace safely.”

Thunder rattled the room once again, and Marianne could hear the wind howling and shaking up loose leaves brushing them harsh against the walls of the castle. Bog caught her focus shift and touched her wrist, his large rough hands so gentle. She took a shaky breath, making her best attempt at a smile.

“It was… bad. Fields don’t- have shelter, not like forests do. We don’t have caves or overhangs. We’ve got - flowers. A few of them had big enough leaves and we did what we could but with the wind it was terrifying. And it hailed,” Bog sucked in a breath, and she nodded. “Yeah. They were about as big as our heads, not too many of them but…” Marianne shook her head. “We’re fine, obviously. It was a quick storm, over in a minute or so but- it’s- it was bad.”

Silently, Bog tugged her into his lap and she let him. She didn’t know how most goblins dealt with storms - probably with ambivalence and some sense of precaution - but then, Bog wasn’t exactly like other goblins. The only winged one of his kind, he probably felt some sense of the instinctual fear that fairies got, and certainly seemed to understand just how terrifying Marianne’s childhood experience had been. They were quiet for a minute, listening to the rain and intermittent thunder echoing through the open, cavernous room. 

After the brief peace, Bog stood suddenly, getting to his feet without so much as a warning. Off guard, Marianne ended up landing flat on her ass, on the floor. She tried to glare at her lover, only to find him looking at her… thoughtfully. She didn’t like that expression; she hadn’t the faintest idea what it meant, but it couldn’t possibly be good.

Bog extended a hand, which she took. He did pull her to her feet, as expected, and proceeded to lift her up entirely, and throw her over one shoulder. 

She gasped. “Bog, what’re you you doing?”

He said nothing, only walking very deliberately out of the throne room.

“Wher- Bog, where are you taking me!”

“We’re watching the storm.”

“We’re  _WHAT_!? No, no, no, no! Were you not listening _at all_  just now? Storms and I - BAD COMBINATION!”

“What do you do when it rains?” He asked with infuriating casualness, ignoring her entirely. 

She kicked her legs furiously. “Take shelter like a sane person!”

He hummed thoughtfully. She could have killed him. “Sooo, the last time you’ve really  _seen_  a storm was the time you told me about?”

“No!” Marianne paused. “…Yes! What does it matter?”

“You’ll see.”

“The hell I will! Bog,  _PUT ME DOWN_!”

And then… he did. He did because he knew and he knew better than to push her too hard and she could see in his eyes the sudden concern that his teasing might go too far. But she saw something else, the same kind of tentativeness that had been in his eyes when he had first shown her his forest, hoping beyond hope that she might see his home the way he did - might find beauty in it’s darkness. 

He wanted to show her something, Marianne realized. He wanted to help, in his own way.

She gulped down a nervous breath. She was his tough girl, and if it was bad, if it only made things worse she knew in her heart that she still would be, and that he would bring her back to safety. 

She trusted him.

“Alright then, mister. Where are we going?”

He looked at her warily a moment longer, making sure she was fulling consenting and then nodded. “Mouth of the castle. It’s as good a view as any.” 

She followed him, rubbing her arms. The sounds of the storm were louder, wilder but carried with them a crisp, clean scent she was used to in the aftermath of storms but never so… strongly. The air was as misty as some of the waterfalls Bog had shown her in his forest. 

And then they were there, standing at the entrance of his castle, over the large overhang watching the world around them pounded by a steady sheet of rain. Marianne shivered instinctively, before noticing Bog had chosen to sit, stretched out on the ground. Relaxed. 

“Do you… do this often?” 

He shrugged. “Every once and a while, if I’m not occupied.”

“You  _like_  this,” she said, incredulous.

“I suppose,” he said. “They’re… powerful, wild, dangerous. Always felt they…suited me somehow.”

“Well aren’t you humble,” she said, settling herself beside him. He laughed, a low chuckle deep in his throat, wrapping a long arm around her. 

The whole sky lit up, casting sharp shadows around them and Marianne caught her breath. A moment later thunder cracked so loudly she could hardly hear herself think, it rumbled long and loud before tapering off into the distance and she felt herself let out a somewhat wild laugh, fear mixing with a kind of exhilaration she had always associated with sparring and adventure. Never with storms. 

She heard Bog’s laugh at her reaction - which became her every reaction, for every roll of thunder that followed, every strong gust of wind that pushed rain past them. Her inhale of shock and anticipation, her gasps mixed with high nervous laughter. She was scared still - somewhere in all of this she was still a young fairy holding her sister tight as they huddled in the makeshift shelter they had found - but it wasn’t at the front of her mind anymore. At the front, she was exactly where she was, watching the downpour in the arms of her love, laughing at the wild scene before her. Safe. 

The storm tapered off slowly. Somewhere in there she had wound up in the Bog King’s lap again, and he counted the seconds between the lightning and thunder over her head, explaining that the more seconds between them the further the storm was. The wind slowed and the rain became a steady, gentle sound. 

“That- that was,” Marianne waved a hand, unsure how to describe it. It had been a lot of things. “Um, thank you. That- it helped.”

She could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “Good, I’m glad.” He cleared his throat and said. “You know, in the future- I could, I mean- we could do this… again?” 

Marianne considered this, thought about her fears and thought about how almost…  _nice_ , this had felt.

“I think we could.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a phobia of thunderstorms for the first 14 years of my life. What Bog did for Marianne is what my dad would do for me (take me out to the garage and sit in lawn-chairs and watch the storm). It always, always calmed me down.


	6. Some Things Are Meant To Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU where the love potion Roland used on Marianne at the end worked on her for however briefly.
> 
> Not nearly as angsty as the description suggests.

Bog was only able to stomach so much. Watching his Marianne - no, she had not been his Marianne, but at least that had been up to her - throw herself into the arms the blond interloper, seeing his smug smirk, blatantly ignoring the shock and horror of literally everyone around them. When he kissed her forehead, condescending and utterly disgusting, it was too much. 

The Bog King lunged for the fairy boy, ready to have his head on a stick. Surely Marianne’s love potion would break when the object of her drugged-affection was dead, right? Marianne, however, was quick to catch his movements and intentions and in one smooth motion had pulled Roland’s sword out and knocked Bog’s staff back. Thrown off by seeing her go from love-struck daze to fierce glower, it took him a moment to react and by then her sword was at his throat again. 

“You don’t lay a hand on my Roland,” she said.

He could have laughed, were the bitterness and heartache not choking him; she was still Marianne, even under the potion’s spell. Her first instinct was to fight anything that opposed her. _Or threatened someone she loved_.

He forced a mocking smile. “Forgive me for not being touched by your dedication to the man who drugged you.” She blinked, confusion momentarily clouding her eyes. Taking advantage of the brief distraction, Bog swung, knocking the sword away from him. “Letting your guard down? How unlike you, tough girl,” he taunted.

That brought her attention back, and she snarled at being caught off guard. She came at him again, but now he was prepared, parrying all of her blows. When she went at his legs he took to the air with her following close behind.

From beneath them, Roland called up, a little bemused and - to Bog’s immense pleasure - nervous. “Now darlin’ come down - no need to get yourself all scarred up for my sake. This ain’t work for a princess.”

Bog couldn’t help but roll his eyes, even as he couldn’t take too much focus away from their battle. “Don’t y’see? He doesn’t love you! This is what he doesn’t want you to be, an’ this is who you are!” it was hard to reason with her, while fighting with her, while she was so earnestly trying to kill him. Even their first fight had devolved into showboating and playful taunts early on - he hadn’t had to truly defend himself against her for long. She was every bit as fierce as she had been then, relentless.  

“I don’t care! I love him!” She shouted.

“You’re not- that’s not real love!” Bog growled, feeling anger now and welcoming it. Angry that she wasn’t listening, angry that this stubborn, prickly, angry little princess deserved so much more than someone who would smother that fire in her, that she would welcome his smothering now. But anger was better than the numbing pain surrounding his heart, it was better than focusing on what he might have had with this fiery wild fairy girl, that had been stolen before he could ever know for sure. 

Marianne lunged, but he could tell his words had distracted her again; the swing was wide and he had no problem dodging. 

“Watch yourself,” he added. “You’re awfully slow.”

“You’re one to talk,” she snapped, and her next attack might have taken his head off had he not barely ducked in time.  _Ah. There she was_. “What makes you think that I don-” she knocked him to the side, the force causing them to spin around each other mid-air, losing her train of thought. Breathless, Marianne tried to return to her argument. “What makes you think I don’t know my own feelings? What do you know about real love, anyway, Mr. Love is Dangerous?”

“A sentiment I recall you sharing until moments ago,” he returned, a little distracted himself. He had caught the edge of a smile curving at her lips - the old joy of fighting on an even playing field too strong to be stamped down entirely. He grinned back, fierce and dark and full of challenge. _Show me what you’ve got tough girl_.

Roland was saying something again but Marianne had already come at him, their fight becoming more of a dance,  her own pride in her skill taking over her desire to protect anyone as her driving force in the fight. When their weapons connected next their faces were pushed together and she was laughing again as they pushed back, grinning every bit as wickedly as he had. They came together again, and for a moment they stayed there, and all he could see were her eyes. And then..

She blinked, brown eyes going wide. “Oh,” she said, softly at first. And then, “ _OHH_.” And she nearly dropped Roland’s sword, barely keeping it upright. And she was laughing, disbelief and shock and something like happiness all mixing together and Bog stared at her hoping beyond hope that this meant what he thought it might.

She met his eyes again and they were clear and sparkling with something he had only seen glimpses of earlier in the night, An emotion he hadn’t dared put the word to. 

“Good to have you back, tough girl,” he said.  _I love you._

And she grinned. “Good to be back,” she said.  _I love you, too._


	7. Call-in Requests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asks I've received for prompted fics

**Prompt: Kiss Me**

“Kiss me.”

Bog looked around the very large, very full fairy ballroom as if expecting there to be someone next to or behind him because the order couldn’t possibly have been for him. “I- ah- I’m sorry?”

Marianne huffed a sigh. “I said ‘kiss me’, Bog. I know the music’s loud but I’d think-”

“No I- I heard you I just- are you- I mean- why?”

“Oh, sorry, is kissing me such a  _chore_ ,” she drawled, “because, you know, you certainly didn’t feel that way last night.” 

Bog felt his face grow very warm even as he scowled at her. “Marianne,” he growled. It was alarming how her voice had carried even in the chattering, music-filled room, and more alarming still how much he… didn’t mind her subjects knowing the carnal details of their relationship. They all knew who their princess was in bed with but, as far as Marianne had told him, they all did their best to block it out as much as they could.

Marianne hummed innocently, seeming to have caught on to his thoughts.“What - it’s true. And I think you should reassure me of just how un-chore-like kissing me is. Right now. Or, you know, we could do any of our other activities from last ni-”

Quickly Bog covered her mouth with his, as much to satisfy her as to shut her up. She responded eagerly, and he lifted her off the ground to make it easier for her to drape her arms over his shoulders and down his back. Over the roaring in his ears he could hear a couple fairies make disgusted noises and move away and it only fueled him to grab Marianne tighter, using his claws to stroke a path in between her wings, making her sigh indecently against his mouth.

They only pulled away when their lungs positively demanded it, and by that point nearly the entire ballroom had turned to stare at them. Which, judging by the very-very smug expression that slowly over took her daze, was exactly what Marianne wanted. 

He shook his head at his lover. “Satisfied?” He asked.

She smirked, tip-toeing her fingers up his chest. “Oh,  _never_.”

* * *

 

**Prompt: "I Think I Love You"**

“I just wanted to- I mean, I wanted to tell you that I- that is-”

Marianne was pacing her bedroom, rehearsing the words. Everything sounded too trivial when she said it lightly, too final if she didn’t. She had half a mind to leave the declaration for another day, as she had so many times before. Bog knew, she knew that he knew how she felt - they’d SUNG about it for god’s sake - but she still felt herself wanting to give it something more special. They had been seeing each other for a little less than a month, and she felt it was a good a time as any to say it. Really say it.

She hadn’t counted on it being so difficult.

“I think- I think I love you- no. I don’t think I love you. I’ve thought I loved people before. I thought I loved  _Roland_  of all people. I do love you, I  _know_  I love you.” She cleared her throat. “Okay. Bog, I- I lo- I loov-” The words stuck in her throat and she clutched at her hair. “Why is this so hard to say?” She growled. 

Because she’d never been in love, not real love, not like this. She loved her sister, her father, the memory of her mother. But romantic love was a different breed entirely, and one she’d had no real experience with prior to her feelings for the Bog King. It was exciting and new and wonderful. But it was also incredibly frightening in it’s strength. She still didn’t know exactly what to do with it.

“I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified,” she muttered, continuing her pacing. “I’m not- this just all so different and new and it’s so much. And it’s good. It’s really really good but I don’t- I don’t know how to be in love, I don’t think. But I’m not scared that you don’t love me or anything-”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

Marianne froze, and turned to the doorway. He was leaning in the doorway, or attempting to best he could when he was, in fact, taller than the entryway. He was smirking at her shock but she could see the blush on his cheeks and the slightly uncertain look in his eye.

“H-how long were you there!?” She demanded, feeling her own face begin to heat up. 

The Bog King laughed. “Long enough.” When she glared, he held up his hands. “I came in on something about you being ‘terrified’.” 

“You could have said something.”

“I believe I just did,”

She scowled, frustrated and humiliated. “You know what I mean. You didn’t have to let me keep going on that absolute wreck of a confession. God!” She buried her face in hers hands and wished for the ability to just disappear. 

She heard him come to her. “You clearly don’t remember how I tried to confess, tough girl.” He took one of her hands off her face and began in a dramatically off tune voice, “ _Wise men say_ -”

Marianne jolted back. “Please don’t!” She cried. “Anything but that! If I never hear that again it will be too soon!”

Bog smirked. “Exactly my point, love. I think it’s safe to say we’re _both_  bad at this.”

Marianne felt herself smile, a little one sided but still a smile. “Okay. That’s fair.”

“I will say,” he added, rubbing the back of his neck. “It- uh, it  _is_  nice to hear.”

Her smile grew at that. “Oh? Well, you know, I still haven’t heard it from you.”

The Bog King rolled his eyes but pulled her close all the same. “Very well. I love you.”

And he said it like it was the easiest thing in the world.

* * *

 

**Prompt: Are You Jealous**

“So you can’t come because you’re going to… a party?” Bog clarified, his voice dry and disbelieving. “No offense to you, love, but that’s a pretty bad excuse.”

Marianne sighed because she had explained this twice over and really, it wasn’t that hard to explain and every time he questioned a bit of her resolve faltered. He’d offered to take her on a trip, a real several-day-long trip to see some of the borders of the kingdom. She wanted to go. She wanted to go soooo baaad. But this was something she couldn’t miss.

“It’s not an excuse and it’s not a party,” she said. Bog snorted and she punched his arm, hard. “It’s not. It’s a formal dinner.”

“Ah yes, and I’m sure that is so much better,” he said. She groaned, rubbing her temple. She  _hated_ dinners. He smirked. “C’mon, you’ve skimped tradition before - what’s one more?”

“This isn’t just any dinner, this isn’t some celebration. Those I can and will skip to be with you, in a heartbeat. This is,” she waved a hand. “ _Political_.”

“Oh?”

Marianne growled, a habit she had picked up from him. “Yes. Our- our neighboring kingdom in the south - it’s where we go on migration - their king died and his son is taking the throne. We’re having a dinner to establish good will with the new ruler and… as future queen it’s extra important that we’re close and on good terms.”

 Bog’s smirk had faded over the course of her explanation. “…Oh,” he said again. And then, looking very deliberately away from her he added. “So, have ye- have you met this new king, then?”

Marianne studied him, confused by both his demeanor and uncharacteristic interest in fairy politics. “Well, I mean a couple times - migrations and all. We were… kids together, I guess you could say. Prince Phoebus- well, King now. He’s quiet, a bit shy I always thought, but I think he’ll be good for them.” She smiled a bit reminiscently. “Dawn had a crush on him for a good two years. That was one of her longer ones.”

“I see,” Bog said, now openly grousing. Marianne understood he was upset by her missing out on their intended adventure but this seemed like more than that. She studied his face and he twisted away from her as if trying to hide his expression. 

And then it hit her.

She couldn’t help it; she burst into giggles. “Wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute. Are you- are you _jealous_?”

“Wha- I- NOo!” He exclaimed, turning toward her and betraying his deep blush. “No! I’m no- I’m not- not jealous I’m onl-”

“Oh my god, Bog, you are ridiculous! You honestly think some handsome, dashing fairy king is going to steal me away from you! Oh my  _god_!”

“That’s not at all what I- well, that is it isn’t that- I mean, I trust you Marianne but I- I don’t-” He trailed off awkwardly.

Marianne was breathless as her laughter finally tapered off. She was glad to hear that he trusted her to know that she wouldn’t run away with anyone else -and really, who else could compare to him? - even if it didn’t stop him from getting almost adorably uncomfortable. There was jealousy out there that was possessive and controlling, and she knew that was not at all how Bog felt, so she bore him no grudge for his silliness.

“You’re ridiculous,” she told him again, reaching to pat him on the cheek. “Besides, even if I were so tempted - which I wouldn’t be - it wouldn’t matter. Phoebus doesn’t like fairy women.”

Bog blinked, looking pleased if not a little baffled by this. “So… does he-  _elves_ … or…?”

Marianne snorted. “Oh, no, Bog, Bog… no. It’s not that he doesn’t like _fairy_ women. It’s that he doesn’t like fairy  _women_.”

“…  _oooh_.”

“ _Yes_.”

* * *

 

**Prompt: "No One Needs To Know"**

Marianne woke to the sound of thunder echoing outside and while she had been adamantly trying to get over her fear of thunderstorms of late, the sound still had her jolting upright in her bed. It was a few hours before dawn, her body knew when she had to get up, when she had to leave the Dark Forest and return to her own kingdom, when was the last possible second that she could leave while still getting home before the sun fully rose. 

She listened to the sound of the pouring rain, a harsh sshhhhhhh sound over her head, another steady rumble of thunder shaking the room slightly, and felt her gut twist in a way that had nothing at all to do with her astraphobia. 

The Bog King, nestled beside her in the mossy bed they shared, registered her absence even when asleep and shifted, slowly coming to. “Mari, wha’is it?” He asked, his voice still thick with sleep. 

Marianne brushed her hair out of her eyes, feeling restless and twitchy with nerves. “Storm,” she said unnecessarily. 

“Hm?” He asked. Then, “Oh. Oooh,” he reached for her, as though to console her from her fears, as so often he did. Usually she appreciated the gesture, in any other case she would gladly have welcomed his warm, rough embrace and the comfort of sleeping in his arms. 

Were that only an option.

“No, Bog,” she said, a touch more irritably than she would have liked. She winced when she saw the hurt touch her lover’s blue eyes as he sat up further and studied her. “It’s storming, and it doesn’t sound like it’s going to let up anytime soon. I can’t fly home in this.”

Bog, bless him, was still too tired to completely grasp the enormity of what she said and only blinked a few times and said, “And?”

Marianne sighed, endearing as he was she hated having to spell this out like this. It bothered her enough already. 

“And my father doesn’t know I’ve been spending the night here. Remember?”

Two more blinks and then she saw recognition light up Bog’s face like the lightning outside. “Oh,” he said again. Then his brow furrowed, so to speak, as he frowned. “Still?”

“What?”

“Your father still doesn’t know? I thought ye had been talkin’ him around all this time,” he sounded genuinely confused but Marianne could hear a sour note to his voice a touch of bitterness that hurt to hear. 

She sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. “I have been. It’s just… I’m taking my time with it. It’s not going to do anyone any good if I just fly in with the news that we’re sleeping together. He knows how I feel and he’s struggling enough with that. I’m just keeping this… on a need-to-know basis…”

“And no one needs to know,” he finished for her, not meeting her eye. 

She knew what he was thinking. They had been over this before. True love or no, the Bog King was still very insecure at heart, she knew that, she understood that and she did what she could to help and reassure him whenever she could, but on the subject of her kingdom, of her father specifically, and her own reservations about letting everyone know just how involved she was with him, just how lost and in love she had become could only be interpreted one way in his eyes; she was ashamed of their relationship, of having a goblin for her paramour, of  _him_. 

She rubbed her eyes tiredly. All the times before, Marianne had patted his cheek smiled and told him  _no, no that wasn’t it at all. and it never would be_. She loved him and to hell with what her kind thought of him or their union. She did, however, always avoid telling him what the real reason was. 

She was too tired for that now. Physically exhausted as well as emotionally tired of seeing how her own selfish behavior bothered him.

Softly she touched his cheek and waited until he turned his face towards her. “I’m scared,” she told him flatly. 

Bog’s eyes widened and automatically one of his hands came to cover hers. It was unusual for her to be scared - it was unheard of for her to say it. “Of what?” He asked, his voice nearly a whisper. 

Marianne tried to hold his eyes, but already she could feel a self-conscious tug pulling them stare at the bed, her face growing warm with embarrassment. “Of this. When- I mean, when Roland and I were engaged everything was so  _public_. Everyone knew of our every second together as if we were being documented. It made sense; the heir to the throne getting married… it was a big deal. And Roland, of course, loved all of it. I thought I did, too, but really… it was suffocating.”

She sighed, letting go of him to rub her eyes again. “And when it- it fell apart. Everyone knew about that too. It was everywhere. I couldn’t go out without people asking me about it and opening the wound again and again. It was half the reason I got so… secluded after that. It was painful and humiliating and it felt like everything was somehow my fault and,” she glanced up at him and then away quickly. “I don’t want that. again.”

Bog began to say something and she shook her head cutting him off. “I’m not scared of this not working out,” she said quickly, and noticed how he relaxed ever so slightly. She smiled, just a little. “No, I know better than that. And I know, I know it probably wouldn’t be the same with you as it was with Roland - nothing with you has been the same as with Roland, thank god. But - oh, I don’t  know. It’s like these storms,” she said, with a little wave of her hand. “I know we’re safe, and I know I’m better now but I- I’m still-”

“Scared,” Bog finished, as he was so prone to. She finally looked at him, for the first time since she opened up this floodgate of sorts into fears she hadn’t quite articulated before. She nodded mutely. He smiled, more in his eyes than his lips and it was a more beautiful sight than all the flowers and forests in the world. “So, we’re taking this all slow not for your father’s sake… but yours?” She nodded again, wincing a little at how silly it sounded. The smile tugged at his lips now. “Ye might have said.”

She laughed, a little breathless and a lot relieved, like there had been a weight she hadn’t even registered until it had been lifted. “I didn’t really want to admit that I was so… silly.”

He rolled his eyes. “We really are bloody dreadful at this communication thing.”

“We’re  _new_  at it,” she corrected, smiling in full. “Too many years shutting people out makes it hard to talk, especially when it’s personal. I’m counting on us getting better.” 

She lay down again, and after a moment he did too, both of them understanding that if Marianne wasn’t going to be able to go anywhere anytime soon, there was no point in not enjoying the extra time with each other. “Dawn knows,” she added. “And she can probably cover for me.”

He hummed thoughtfully, running his fingers through her hair. “So, crisis averted.” 

“For now. I’ll probably tell dad tonight, though.”

She felt his laugh more than heard it. “No rush, love,” he said, and he sounded almost smug. “No one needs to know.”

 


	8. With Rites of Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beltane in the Fairy Kingdom

The Bog King supposed the problem started when Marianne referred to what was bothering her as  _Fairy Stuff_.

Well, it was really the problem of that saying in general - “Fairy Stuff”, “Goblin Business” or any variation thereupon -  which had, over the past two months, become the pair’s way of letting the other know that whatever bad mood they may be in on any given day was completely unrelated to them and therefor nothing to worry about. Typically, Marianne would ask for elaboration, always curious about the politics in the Dark Forest and tactical strategies while she trained for her inevitable future as ruler of a kingdom of her own. Bog, already in possession of his kingdom, did not share in her curiosity and usually left any fairy business as that,  _fairy_  business.  

Okay so maybe _that_ was where the problem was.

It wasn’t necessarily that Bog wasn’t curious, either, when whatever it was didn’t go away after a day or so. It was a bit.. unusual surely, from Marianne. But, like him, Bog had the distinct feeling Marianne didn’t like to talk about emotions should she be able avoid it. They were new to this, this having someone with which they could confide, and they would get used to it in time. Unless it was pressing, or Marianne’s condition worsened, Bog was prepared to leave it. 

And so it went for a little over a week, moving into the end of spring - until Dawn.

The younger princess had visited, as she was wont to do every once and a while - seeming to have remained fond of him even without the potion’s power. Bog did nothing to deter her from these trips, so long as she wasn’t singing, for having someone like him, even in the platonic sense, was a commodity that he didn’t expect to tire from. And to be quite honest, now that she wasn’t throwing herself at him so adamantly, Bog was fond of her as well.

Although, typically, she came in tow with his lover. That day, Marianne was suspiciously - and disappointingly - absent.

“Council meetings,” Dawn said, with a sympathetic smile. “She told me to come tell you she’s gonna be stuck all day. Said she’d, er, make it up to you,” she added, with a determined casualness as if trying very hard not to imagine what her sister had in mind in making it up to him. Bog rolled his eyes; knowing Marianne, it meant sparring under a full moon or some other gesture the odd couple considered their own brand of romantic. Nothing more. 

“That’s more than usual, if they’re keepin her all day,” he groused, more to himself.

She shrugged. “It’s the change of seasons - there’s always more.”

That made sense, irritating as it might be. And here he thought all fairies did for seasonal changes was to throw parties. Something stuck him and he looked up. “Is that what’s gotten her so nervous?”

“Nervous?”

Too late he hoped she wouldn’t tell Marianne he’d mentioned it - hoped even more that she wouldn’t mention he’d used the word  _nervous_. He made a vague gesture. “Worked up, on edge, what-have-you. She said it was business in  _your_  court and I didn’t press it but-” He trailed off. If Marianne got anxious around major Court Days well then, now he knew. 

Dawn looked perplexed. “Well, no. I don’t see why that would get her nervous - Marianne’s been having council meetings for a year now and she’s good at public speaking. I mean, she might be a little stressed about what some of the elders might say about you two being, you know, a thing but I don’t -OH!”

Bog blinked, not sure he liked the sudden epiphany the younger princess had experienced. “Oh?”

“Oh, of course! It’s _Beltane_! Well, in a week it’s Beltane but we’ve already started preparing for it. Of course she’s getting antsy” she said, as though it was plain as day. 

Bog blinked a few times more, trying to think of a tactful way to express his ignorance. It sounded… important, but he had since learned that things that were important to Dawn were not necessarily important to him - or to Marianne for that matter.

Dawn eventually caught on to the blank expression, and gave a disgusted sound that reminded him very much of her sister. “Oh come on - you can’t tell me goblins don’t have Beltane.”

“I assure you I  _can_  - although it would be easier if you told me exactly what it was.”

“It’s the celebration for the start of summer. It’s held on May eve-”

“So… it’s a party?” Bog interrupted, remembering his earlier thoughts about how fairies tracked seasons through what felt like an endless parade of formal occasions. “Ye’re telling me Marianne is nervous about a  _party_?”

Dawn actually flew up to where he sat on his throne, her expression uncharacteristically serious, and he immediately wished he hadn’t sounded quite so scornful. “Bog,” Yep, the nicknames were gone. This wasn’t good. “You love my sister, right?”

“I- uhm- yes?”

“And you want her to be happy, right?”

“Yes,” he said, a little more firmly.

“Than do not ever  _ever_  call Beltane ‘a party’ like that around her.” 

He swallowed hard. “Um, okay.” Dawn relaxed instantly, the smile returning like it had never left.. “It- ah would help if you could explain… why?”

She sighed, perching herself on the arm of the throne and looking prepared to stay a while. “Beltane is so much  _more_  than a party. I mean, it  _is_  a party, but it’s not what you’re thinking when you think of our parties. It’s…” she waved a hand, “Old. Oh, Marianne is better at history being heir and all and could probably tell you how old but it’s  _old_ , okay. Most of our balls, the ones you and Marianne hate are newer things, but Beltane- it’s been around as long as we’ve had history. It’s tradition and community and - it’s  _fun_. There’s bonfires and performers and dances and songs we’ve all known so long that no one remembers actually learning them, you know.”

Dawn had gone to looking at her palm as she dutifully lectured him on fairy history, but she looked at him again as she reached the end of her explanation. “And it’s kinddaaa Marianne’s favorite festival,” she added.

That was really all she had needed to say, but Bog was surprisingly grateful for the rest of it. Goblins were gregarious by nature, communal less in the form of courts and class as it had always appeared fairies were, but more as a bonding as a race, as a people. Even Bog himself, for looking nothing like any goblin might and treated with some measure of othering for it, was still generally respected not only as the king but as a member of that community.

So Marianne - who had her own insecurities regarding her place among her people - enjoyed a tradition that focused on inclusion in society. Party or no, that made sense to him, mostly.

“But why would she be… nervous about it?” It was the only thing that still confused him. 

Dawn looked at him blankly and then buried her face in her hand. “Boggyyy,” she groaned.

He glared, although she couldn’t see it. “ _What_?” He was growing a little tired of being so lost when it apparently came to fairy social cues. If things continued in this vein he was going to  _have_ to start asking for more elaboration to Marianne’s ‘Fairy Business’ statements. 

“Do I need to spell this out?”

“Evidently.”

“She wants you to go. with. her.” Dawn poked his chest for punctuation.

Bog stared at her. “Oh,” he said quietly. It was all he could say. Truthfully it was really all he could think. He had been with Marianne for roughly two months, during the course of which there had been three separate parties, balls, or some variation of festivities held in her kingdom. Two of them she happily avoided, spending the evening with him. The third she had some political obligation to attend, with much grinding of her teeth. But she had never, ever invited him to one before.

Well, to be more accurate, she hadn’t invited him to this one either.

“Then why hasn’t she said?” He asked, baffled and completely missing the fact that  _this_  was exactly what she was nervous about.

The younger princess rolled her eyes. “Oh I don’t know, maybe it had something to do with ’ _Marianne’s nervous about a_ fairy party _?_ ’” She mocked his earlier scorn, lowering her voice in a ridiculous attempt to sound like him - her voice not nearly gravely enough to have any resemblance.

Bog rolled his own eyes. “Very flatterin’, princess. And I wouldn’t have-”

Dawn cut off what, in all honesty, probably would have been a lie. “Maybe you would have and maybe you wouldn’t have but she knows that you two like nothing better than to make snarky comments at all formality and tradition - she’d do it for any other party. So she’s probably all worked up into a tizzy wanting to ask you to come with her but not wanting to make you come somewhere you’re uncomfortable because my sister is  _ridiculous_  oh, and then there’s  _everything else_!” She threw up her hands, accidentally slipping off the throne arm. Her wings caught her and she fluttered mostly gracefully to standing. Bog smirked; Marianne would have simply fallen on her ass. 

“Then there’s… what?” He asked, when it occurred to him to do so.

But Dawn seemed done with being helpful. She smoothed her dress. “Nothing, nothing. Just,” she glanced up at him. “Please go. Marianne would be so happy.”

Bog fidgeted, uncomfortable. “You can stop with the eyes,” he grumbled. “It’s her favorite… I’ll… make an appearance.” Dawn squealed, flying forward to give him an awkward embrace, which he allowed for a moment before giving her a small shove and his best attempt at a sour expression. “And stop that,” he added.

She laughed, playfully pinching his nose. “Fine fine fine, I’ll go home.” She prepared to do so before adding over her shoulder. “Oh and Marianne’s probably freaking out about the potential chance of you seeing her in formal wear.”

Bog stared after her. He was only barely used to the idea that what fairies wore was detachable, much less that it could be changed at anytime they chose. “Is it- different than what she normally wears?”

Dawn only laughed.

* * *

* * *

Marianne did indeed make up missing a night with her lover by a particularly amazing outdoor sparring session. The Bog King watched her pick twigs out of her wild hair, smiling with satisfaction, and tried to think of how to invite himself to a party he knew nearly nothing about.

They sat on the forest floor, too tired to even consider flying right then, simply catching their breaths and staring at the muted light as it passed in sheets through the canopy of leaves. 

“Shame about the moon,” Marianne said absently.

The sky had been mostly clouded, the near-full moon barely peaking out on occasion only to dip behind growing cloud cover as the night had progressed

“We can do it again,” he suggested. She hummed, contented by this. “It’ll be full soon, anyways,” then very carefully, “after Beltane, I think.”

He’d tried to say the word casual, as though it had existed in his vernacular for more than a night, but he failed spectacularly, fumbling the word out as though it were in a foreign language. When Marianne froze and turned to him he was suddenly convinced that Dawn had lied to him completely. This had been a bad idea. Abort mission.

“What?”

Bog wrung his hands. “Ehm… Beltane. May eve. I- uh- I know it’s a… thing for-”

“Dawn told you.”

“Well ah- I- she- uhm- Yes. Yes, she did.”

Marianne groaned, but she didn’t look upset. Her lips curved into an ironic grin. “I guess I deserved that for not saying anything first.”

He smiled against his embarrassment. “Ye had no reason to believe I’d want to go.”

“And… do you- and I mean, if you don’t it’s really fine. I don’t know what Dawn told you but I really don’t need to go. I mean, I didn’t go last year and another year-”

“Marianne,” he interrupted, his smile growing more genuine as he watched her stumble over the words, much like he knew he would have had he even attempted to suavely ask to accompany her. She flushed a little and looked at him, anticipating. “I want to go-” It wasn’t completely the truth and so he amended. “I want to be with you, an’ if ye want to go, I’ll go with you.”

She eyed him warily. “Really? It’s- I mean, you and fairy parties don’t-”

“I promise not to kidnap anyone this time,” Bog said, dryly. She snorted, and he added. “I’m serious. If you really want me there, I’ll come with ye.” Oddly, he was warming to the whole idea. He could see that, while she was trying so hard to brush this aside as something trivial, the idea of him coming pleased her enormously. It was one thing to hear Dawn tell him he would make Marianne happy by going, it was another to see her eyes sparkling, holding her breath and trying not to get her hopes up. 

“Really, Tough Girl,” he said firmly. “I’d suffer far worse than a party to make you happy.”

Marianne looked at him a moment longer, searching his face before breaking out into a smile that could have put the moon to shame. She tossed her arms around his neck and kissed him and Bog figured if this was all the payment he received it would be more than worth it. 

She pulled away with a slightly awkward cough. “So, um. What… exactly did Dawn tell you about why I wanted you to come?”

Bog tried to remember exactly what the blonde princess had said the night before. “Ah- somethin about it being… old. Traditions an’ the like.” He shrugged. “Said it was your favorite.”

Marianne smiled a little absently. “It is.”

“Why? Is there any other reason?”

“What?” She blinked, and then flushed a little. “oh, no, no. No. I just I wondered what she’d said.”

Bog continued to look at her, not completely sure he believed her. But all he said instead was, “She said something about dressin’ formal might bother ye?”

Marianne snorted. “Oh, no. That’s Dawn projecting herself on me there.”

He chuckled a little. “I guessed as much.”

“I mean, well. I will be um… dressing up for it. But I don’t care about it. I’ll just wear whatever Dawn tells me looks good - I trust her judgement. Mostly. This is the whole reason she loves parties anyways. Well, that and boys, but now that she has Sunny it’s all dress-up.” 

Bog considered this, mostly once again considering the idea of seeing Marianne in anything other than what he always saw her in. He found himself oddly anticipating it. 

“So,” he said, just to say something. “I hope ye’re not expecting me to dress up.”

She laughed. “Dawn’ll probably make you a boutonniere so don’t even worry about it.” He smiled in spite of himself at that and she playfully nudged him with her shoulder. “C’mon. I think I’m up to flying - wanna head hom-  _back_. Wanna head back?”

“Home?” He asked, smirking more when she blushed. Marianne spent most of her nights at his castle with him, but all of her things were still at the fairy palace… but slowly yet surely he could tell she was beginning to see the forest,  _his_  forest, as her place. 

“ _Back_ ,” she said firmly, standing and almost immediately taking off - so, he presumed, she wouldn’t have to look at him. 

Now grinning in earnest he took off after her. “Ye said ‘ _home_ ’.”

“Shut up.”

* * *

* * *

With Marianne now decidedly not nervous about the festival to come, Beltane nearly fell off his mental radar for the next four days. All except for his occasional thought that it was nice that she was relaxed again and a reminder to himself, again, to just ask her the next time something like this happened, ‘Fairy Stuff’ be damned.

Still when May eve arrived, the Bog King flew to the edge of the fairy kingdom, feeling thoroughly unprepared for what was to come. Too late, wished in vain that he had asked both princesses more about what to expect from the fairy ball at hand.

“Will we- should I come _with_ -with you or,” he had asked the night previous. He knew very little about fairy etiquette aside from what she would grouse about regularly - such as having to enter in a procession at the beginning of all festivities and having everyone stare at her. It was her least favorite.

He hadn’t been surprised then when Marianne shook her head, smiling. “No, no. And you don’t even need to come at the beginning. Whenever you want to come in - I know how much you like making an entrance.” He’d given her a shove and she’d laughed. They’d left it there.

Now he regretted doing so, as the idea of coming in ‘whenever’ felt considerably more daunting when not backed by all of his subjects with a very well-coordinated plan of attack. He didn’t even know where his lover  _was_. 

Thankfully, even in a flowering field rather than in the muted colors of his forest, it was evening and he therefor he had some measure of blending in that allowed him to hover at the very edge of the clearing that had been decked out for Beltane, staying in the shadows cast by numerous fires and lanterns and taking a moment to survey the situation and attempt to marshal some kind of courage. 

Beltane was, well, it was enormous. The field itself rested at the edge of a stream with much . There were, as Dawn had said, several bonfires, and strings of colored lights high above. There was dancing, performing, and music, but not from any particular stage - more rather it appeared as though handfuls of people just had instruments and were playing along to songs they all seemed to know. Three poles stood in the center with several fairies winding the ribbons at the top of them into patterns. It was loud, joyous and just so.  _huge_. 

Bog was aware the only other party he had seen was actually one of the elven parties and therefor was easy to imagine being smaller -  _heh_. But Marianne had said something about the fact that Beltane was one of the few celebrations where not only were all fairies - regardless of class - invited, but the only celebration that all elves were given access to as well. That had actually made him more interested in coming; while Bog still admitted to not being… overly fond of fairy court and culture, he had come to decide he didn’t mind elves quite so much. 

And thankfully, their presence didn’t necessarily hinder him from seeking out Marianne, looking for the glowing purple of her wings that seemed to pop regardless of the lighting. He supposed it would be easier to search for her if he actually made an attempt to, er,  _enter_  the party but Bog wasn’t quite sure of himself enough to do that before at least seeing Marianne. 

At last he found her, talking to her sister. Her back was to him but he could see both princesses wore crowns of flowers in their hair and were dressed… well Bog couldn’t concentrate much on what they were wearing so much as noticing the fact that Marianne’s Beltane dress was without a back and was too busy being struck by the amount of bare skin visible. He swallowed hard, and barely registered himself moving out of the shade. 

It wasn’t until a few people gasped in nothing short of horror that Bog realized he had made his presence known. He didn’t have time to feel anything about that because Marianne had heard the distressed sounds of her subjects and turned. Her face lit up the way it had when he had first agreed to this whole thing and he was reminded once again why he had - that smile. 

Next to her, Dawn perked up and waved her hand enthusiastically. “BOGGY! OVER HERE!”

Bog cringed a little, but it seemed being acknowledged by the two fairy princesses made his appearance bearable by the rest of the guests. After a moment someone started playing something on a wooden flute and suddenly talk, music and movement returned to normal. Bog didn’t move further into the crowd but waited on the edge until Marianne came to him, her face flushed with laughter and her eyes sparkling. 

“Hey,” she said breathlessly. 

“Hey.”

“Not like you to sneak in quiet. I was hoping for some pyrotechnics at the very least.”

“Maybe next time,” he said, feeling a great deal less tense now that she was there. As frequently occurred when he was with Marianne, the rest of the world just kind of faded into an unimportant, indistinguishable murmur. 

She sighed dramatically. “I suppose next time will do.” 

“It isn’t as though you need more fire,” he added with a nod towards the flames around them - many of which were at least twice his own height. She shrugged as though she disagreed but was ready to leave it and Bog remembered again to look at what she was wearing. 

It was, well, not extravagant - at least not to the extent that some of the other fairies present were dolled up in - but it was softer, a flowier sort of petaled garment in a lighter shade of pink than her usual tunic-dress. She wore garlands of small white flowers at her wrists and neck and while she still wore the make-up he had since learned was very much not a typical fairy fashion, it too was in more green shades. 

“You look-” he had begun, as he looked her over, trying to find some word that said different-but-I-like-it in a less foolish way. While any form of eloquence betrayed him he realized the fabric was indeed petals, and paused as something niggled at his mind. He squinted, studying them in the poor light. “Are- Are those- are you wearing  _primroses_?” He demanded, incredulous disbelief momentarily covering any other emotion.

Marianne shuffled her feet, but was smiling, seeming wholly unrepentant in this act. “Mayybe.”

“Why on  _earth_ -”

“Well think of it this way, at least I’m not using them for anything else,” when he just stared at her she laughed in earnest. “Bog, you are absolutely ridiculous - here.” She grabbed his hand and placed it on the dress, at her hip. “And, look, you haven’t combusted. We’re good.”

Bog blinked, but made no move to removed his hand from is position. The shock of it wearing off he did admit she looked positively radiant, and as he absently slid his arm further around her his hand brushed the bare skin on her back. Primroses or no, that was certainly a perk. 

“Yer beautiful,” he said simply.

She shivered a little, her smile growing impish. “You’re ridiculous,” she repeated. “Now come on. Do you want anything to drink? Oh, and here,” one hand all but punched his shoulder and left in its wake a small boutonniere. It was a darker pink than her dress with more mossy greenery to it. 

He shook his head at it before looking at her. “Dawn?”

She was looking at her feet. “Well, um, she made you one too. But that one’s- I mean. I thought I might try a hand a-at making one. Again.”

Bog bit his lip to keep from laughing at her, and moved his hand from her to touch it gently, this information making him all the more pleased by the gesture. “It’s-”

“Lovely?”

“Close enough.” 

She laughed. “Come on,” she said again, and this time grabbed his arm and hauled him toward her sister and the elf boy that was courting her. The crowd of fairies and elves parted around them but it seemed more out of respect for Marianne than fear of the Bog King. Bog noticed that many of them were smiling. While his union to their heir didn’t make much sense to them, they seemed aware that he had made their beloved princess happy and accepted them on that basis alone. Bog who had prepared to feel thoroughly outcasted from this party, felt almost - not quite but almost - wanted.

Marianne seemed to notice that he was relaxing and was grinning more openly. He began to ask more questions about what was around them - what the poles (May Poles?) were for, what the songs were, more about what the holiday itself was about - all of which the two fairies and one elf answered. He and Marianne shared wines, as well as something called Beltane Bread. When certain songs began Dawn grabbed her beau and left Marianne and Bog to talk and watch them. It never occurred to him to ask her to dance and she didn’t seem to mind.

“Where’s your father?” Bog asked, as they watched the couple twirl each other about in time with the music with such grace that their near comical height difference didn’t even matter - having been with someone, platonically or no, since childhood certainly gave one advantages. He had a feeling he and Marianne would not manage that quite so well.

Marianne shrugged, absently. She was weaving a garland of flowers into a crown - for him he suspected - and it was taking much of her concentration. “About. Beltane is a bit too active for him. Most parties you know, in the palace have a place for royalty to sit and watch over everything. This doesn’t. So he just kind of sits back somewhere. Probably well enough, especially this year.” She looked up at her sister and smiled.

“Speaking of, how is he handling  _that_?”

“By avoiding it entirely, of course. He still seems convinced that Sunny is as good as any of her crushes that will be over in a week. Maybe in a year or ten it’ll hit him,” she said with an affectionate sort of disgust.  

“And… us?” He asked before he could stop himself.

Marianne grinned, and flew up a few inches to deposit the flower crown onto his head. “Oh, he’s dealing with it - only because I refuse to let him avoid it. I told him weeks ago that I had every intention of inviting you to come here with me - of course, then I, you know, didn’t invite you until my sister got involved - but that I wasn’t sure you’d come. I think part of him hoped you wouldn’t.”

He grinned. “I live to disappoint.”

She laughed. “Well you’ve yet to disappoint me,” she said and looped her arms around his neck, pulling him down to a kiss. “Thanks for being here.”

Unable to think of anything to possibly say, Bog simply kissed her again, pulling her closer to him, sliding one hand into her hair. Strangely, no one around them seemed to react to that. Even with her people accepting him for making her happy, he knew public affection wasn’t something they particularly wanted to see and had expected  _something_. 

Marianne, for her part, didn’t mind at all that they were making out in plain sight in a very crowded fairy party but then, she had never cared what her people thought of her, of them. She only broke away when the music faded and people applauded. They smiled at each other, a little flustered by the unexpected heat of their embrace. 

“I’m- I’m going to get another drink,” she mumbled, taking a slightly stumbling step backwards and running into an elf behind her. She hastily apologized, blushing and gave Bog the smallest wave before disappearing into the crowd.

He watched her go, still slightly dazed, before turning his attention back to the festivities around him. It was getting later and while nothing had died down per say he could see the smaller fires were beginning to die into smoldering embers and that the party had begun to thin out - largely, as far as he could tell, the younger fairies and elves, the families, were the ones who had left - not enough to make it seem any less full, but still.

And then Bog noticed something else.

Of the people left that he could see, or focused on… they were all couples. That might be expected, he didn’t know how important having a partner was for fairy parties, but it certainly hadn’t seemed to be a prerequisite for Beltane. Besides, Marianne had groused before about other parties that seemed to be nothing but an excuse for attempts at hooking up and the sappy romance they both still hated. But this, this didn’t feel like that kind of infatuated love - there was something deeper, stronger about these pairs, as if the same rituals that went with the music, the dancing and the food also seeped into the interactions between lovers. Many were dancing together, and a few, as Bog watched disappeared into the fields, hands entwined. No one seemed to question anyone leaving. If anything it seemed expected. By the time a third couple had done the same, it had hit him. 

He remembered Dawn and then Marianne mentioning a  _something else_  in regards to why Marianne wanted him to come to Beltane so much, with neither of them willing to elaborate. And here it was.

Marianne returned, holding two drinks. “Sorry did you want- I forgot to ask. Here.”

Bog had been staring into nothing for sometime as the weight and implications of his revelation sunk down on him, but seeing Marianne emboldened him. Without a word, he took the goblet offered and downed it in one go, then held a hand to her. “Did ye want to dance, Tough Girl?”

Marianne blinked, and he was pleased to see her blush. Still she managed a slightly skeptical raise of her eyebrow before taking his hand and quickly handing her drink to the nearest person. “Well, if you insist.”

He knew nothing about practices steps but he knew how to hold her and for the music that was really all they needed. She laughed as they stepped on each other’s feet more than once but soon enough they’d gotten some sense of a rhythm and the laughter and teasing faded into something warm and heavy.

“Soo,” he said, letting his claws drag lightly at the skin of her back, just between her wings, enjoying the way she shivered and her small gasp. Yes, this dress certainly had that going for it, primroses be damned. “When exactly were you plannin’ to tell me that Beltane is a, um,  _mating_ festival?”

He almost laughed when she froze completely and stared at him, her face going pinker than her dress. “It’s- no! I mean, it’s not!” He raised a barky eyebrow at her, and she shook her head. “It’s not. It’s about growth and life and- and-” faced with his expression of amused skepticism she dropped her head with a groan. “And fertility. In  _all_ senses of the term.”

“ _Ah_.”

“I mean, that’s really not the  _heart_  of it and I didn’t want you to think that I just wanted you to come because I wanted to- wanted us to- you know… and we don’t even have to. Like, there’s so many other Beltane traditions about r-relationships that don’t have to- to be-”

She was cut off when he stooped to kiss her. Breaking away, he kissed her jaw while she valiantly, and uselessly, continued trying to explain that she hadn’t  _meant_  to keep this part of Beltane away from him and that this really wasn’t  _all_  she wanted - and he believed her - but it amused him to feel her steadily losing her train of thought as he kissed along her neck, her jawline, the tip of one ear. 

Her words quickly turned into sighs and soft moans as Bog made it perfectly clear to her that - once the initial surprise had worn off - he was not at all upset with the development. It felt like one entire thing more to know that  _this_  was why she had wanted him there, that  _this_  was what she wanted.  _He_  was what she wanted to spend this night with. It wouldn’t be their first, but it felt like something more with the archaic magic of the night as a backdrop… and he certainly wasn’t about to fight that.

By the time he was kissing her mouth again, Marianne appeared to have gotten the message and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him back hungrily. One hand wandered to stroke his spine and he growled low in his throat, pulling her tighter against him, any attempt at even pretending to dance now gone from either’s mind.

“We should- we shouldn’t- here,” he said between gasps. For all that this was seemingly expected this time of year, Bog seriously doubted that it was acceptable for him to take her then and there. 

Marianne smiled a slow, coy smile that made him shiver. She took his hand, and together they left the party.

* * *

* * *

“I’m ah- I’m sorry about the dress,” the Bog King murmured to his lover some time later, as they lay together, secluded under an overhand of rock near the border of their lands. The glow of the Beltane fires had since died in the distance and he had a feeling it would be dawn soon. 

Marianne’s primrose dress had not so much been discarded as destroyed in their passion. In his defense he’d had no idea how flimsy the material was - her other dress was made far sturdier or else he would have done the same to it by then.

She snorted softly. “Well, you do have a penchant for destroying primroses,” she said, sounding almost smug. 

He looked down at her. “Tha’, that wasn’t  _why_  you wore that, was it?” The idea of her choosing the dress with the explicit desire of having him rip it off her sent a wave of heat through him. 

Marianne was decidedly  _not_ looking at him. “What? Of course not. I told you, Dawn chooses my dresses most times.”

“Most,” he repeated. “But no’ tonight.”

“Shut up,” she mumbled. He laughed and kissed her very red forehead. 

His laughter faded and they lay in content silence for a while before Bog spoke up, dryly. “I don’t suppose this has anythin’ to do with why Beltane is yer favorite?”

“No,” Marianne said, but there was no strength in it. She sighed, the sound rich with satisfaction. “But I have always wanted this,” she said. “Beltane is a lot of things, a lot of fun and celebration but I always knew  _this_  was part of it, too. I was looking forward to- back when I was with Roland… Our wedding was going to be a few weeks before Beltane and I was looking forward to… this. And that’s why I didn’t go last year. Everything was so raw and I knew seeing everyone around me being so- it would have ruined it for me forever. 

“So, I’m really glad you came,” she ended. “Not just for  _this_  part of- of mating but just- knowing I’m- or  _being_ -”

“Wanted?” He finished, remembering his own thoughts.

Her eyes widened, but she smiled. “Yeah.” They both smiled stupidly at each other, thinking the same thing; they really were perfect for each other. 

Another silence stretched between them before Bog added. “Did ye want to sleep here or…?”

Marianne snuggled herself close to him. “It’s tradition. In the morning, we’ll find a May bush and bring home a bud of it. It’s supposed to bring luck.”

Much as Bog didn’t think they particularly needed luck, he appreciated the sentiment. “Home?” he echoed.

In her pause he could feel Marianne both blushing and grinning. “Yeah. Home. Shut up.”

“Not sayin’ anything, Tough Girl.”

“Shut up,” she repeated. “And go to sleep.”

He chuckled, but tightened his hold on her. “Happy Beltane,” he said, only slightly teasing.

Marianne hummed with a sleepy sort of pleasure. “Happy Beltane.”


	9. Noble Maiden Fair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Early Mother's Day

It had been a silly conversation they had been having, the topic of which Marianne couldn’t really recall except for all that it had gotten her to say the words “I got that from my mother,” in regards to some trait of hers (stubbornness, no doubt - Bog made a habit of grousing about it for all that he was just as bad as she). 

“Was she much like you?”

Marianne was startled he had asked. With the exception of she and Dawn, Bog didn’t have any curiosity or interest in fairies, even after their few months of… well, whatever it was they had. She supposed with her and Dawn being so different from each other - her being so different from all fairies for that matter - one might be a bit curious as to just  _where_  she had come from. Certainly she was nothing like her father, so the question was logical.

With those thoughts in mind, she shrugged, an awkward gesture with his arm resting heavily around her shoulders. They sat on a tree branch, watching the moonrise - the first clear night in over a week, they had every intention of enjoying it. 

“I… like to think she was, and in ways we were. But-” she threw up a hand, making a vague waving motion to try and describe a relationship she had always had difficulty putting words to. Her mother had died when she was ten years old, it would be fifteen years since then come that august. Marianne remembered her mother better than perhaps Dawn did, but…

“Oh, I don’t know. She died when I was still pretty young and most of my memories of her were pretty formal occasions. She was stately, and graceful and… and so  _fairylike_. I mean it’s been said that she was the most beloved queen our kingdom had seen in centuries, if that says anything about her. And she was beautiful - nothing like me in that sense-”

Bog gave her a small shove. “I could contend with that.”

She laughed. Appearance had had nothing to do with their relationship but she found she meant it more and more when she told him he was handsome to her, and found herself more and more pleased to hear that he truly was attracted to her in return. “I only meant that she looked more like Dawn than me, and Dawn’s ideal by our culture. She was smart, though, and I think spoke out more than fairy ladies - even royal ones - are supposed to.” Bog snorted and Marianne grinned. “Yeah, that’s definitely where I got that from. And she was stubborn, too. When she wanted something she would get it.”

Marianne sighed, looking at the stars. It felt weird talking about her again. She’d meant what she’d said; Queen Selene of the Light Fields was considered everything desirable in a fairy maiden, and a fairy queen. Sure she’d had Marianne’s stubbornness, that same fire, but she exerted it in a way that pulled people to her side and created loyalty, the perfect balance of silk and steel. All Marianne’s headstrong qualities did was cause distance between her and her people. She’d owned up to that now, had found someone who loved her for all her toughness, but she was going to be queen some day. And she couldn’t stop herself from wondering if she would ever be half the queen her mother had been.

And there was more than that.

She spoke, her voice quiet, considerably less bantering. “I worried a lot, before, that if she saw me now, how I turned out, that she would be disappointed. Wild, clumsy, _different_  Marianne. Nothing like any good fairy princess should be. God knows I get that from everyone else.” Bog was watching her carefully, and at last she looked at him again and smiled with genuine warmth. “But, you know, I think she’d see that I’m happier like this - and I think that would be enough for her. I hope so at least.”

The Bog King smiled back, that soft almost shy smile that made her heart melt. He pressed a kiss to her temple and she shoved him a little, trying to get the mood lighter again. The moonlight was strong, but hopefully not so much that he could see that her eyes had gone a little glassy. The last thing anyone needed was him fussing over tears as he was wont to do.

Thankfully, whether he had noticed or not, he’d had the grace to move the conversation forward. He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck for a moment before asking. “An’… do you think she would have- that is, um, with us bein’- would she-”

Marianne saved him from further stumbling. “I’ve thought about that. She would have loved you.”

“R-Really?” He asked, clearly having not expected that from someone who had just been described as ‘ _the ideal fairy queen_ ’. 

“Really,” she said, trying not to laugh. “I wasn’t the first to want to try for diplomacy with your kingdom, you know. In fact, mom was the one who gave me the idea to begin with. She would have approved of our, er, union from political standpoints from the beginning. But,” she smiled at him. “She would have liked  _you_  too, once she got to know you - just as I did. She’d have seen that you’re smart and competent, and that you love me. I don’t think how you look would have mattered at all.”

Bog grinned a very stupid grin and she did laugh now. He was so like her; for all that they claimed not to care in the least, getting someone’s approval meant the world to them. After a moment of stupidly smiling at each other, he looked away and spoke casually, as if she couldn’t see the wicked smirk on his face. “You know, I’m not surprised yer mother didn’t care about appearances. She married your father, after all.

She gasped, as outraged as she was amused, and punched him hard in the arm. “ _Hey_! Don’t be rude! I’ll have you know dad was once a very strapping fairy lad.”

“Depends on yer definition.”

She rolled her eyes. “Besides, it was an arranged marriage.” 

“ _Ah_ ,” Bog said. “A much clearer explanation.”

“You shut up,” Marianne said. “They did love each other. Dad still does.” At that, her lover dutifully let the matter go. She sighed, a much happier one than earlier. “I wish you could have met her.”

“I do too, Tough Girl.” 

“Well, at least I’ve got your mother.” Griselda was… an interesting woman. But with her obvious love for her son - and for her now - it was hard not to develop a strange sort of fondness for the goblin. Maternal affection, like romantic affection, was something Marianne had been starved for until very recently. 

“A poor second,” Bog said, but she could tell he was teasing. 

She rolled her eyes. “You’re a terrible son, you know that.” She perked up a little. “We ought to do something for her. Dawn and I used to give mom flowers and make her breakfasts and all sorts of things for mother’s day!”

Bog blinked at her, looking confused and more than a little startled. “For  _what_?”

“You don’t have mother’s day?”

“I think we’ve long established we don’t have a lot - if not any at all - of your celebrations, tough girl.”

“But mother’s day!” She gasped. “Well, that clinches it. Come on. We’re plotting.” 

She took off back to the castle, the Bog King spluttering and following behind. Marianne couldn’t help laughing. It had been a long time since she’d had a mother’s day that wasn’t visiting her mother’s burial sight. For the first time in a long time, Marianne was going to have some fun.

And she thought that’s exactly what her mother would want.


	10. Outpouring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marianne finds a certain someone's journal and some very... interesting writing.

It really hadn’t been her intention to snoop through the personal belongings of her paramour, truly it hadn’t. By the stars, Marainne had a younger sister! She knew the boundaries when it came to touching another’s things.

And really it was his fault for sending her to look through his things to begin with. He had asked her if she could go to thei-  _his_  room ( _his his **his**_  she kept reminding herself - it had been almost two months and she had spent near every night in that bed but it was still far too early for that) to find some old book of codes or laws or whatnot for smaller issues.

“You keep that in your bedroom?” She’s asked him. “That’s some light reading you’ve got there.”

Bog had rolled his eyes and made a shoo-ing gesture, but made no move to correct or contradict her. Marianne had gone, all the while wondering over that; in all their conversations, in all their evening and nights spent together she couldn’t say she actually knew what he did when they were apart. Surely ruling didn’t take up  _all_  of his time. 

So it really was entirely his fault that she stumbled upon a different book, tucked into a corner of his room - it wasn’t as if anything had defining features on any of the dark earthy wrappings on it. She’d just have to look through it and see. 

Truly, it never occurred to her to find anything personal in them. She liked to think that had she known she would have never looked. But…

 _I tried to make you happy_  
I did all that I could  
just to keep you

_I don’t know why I’m still waiting  
I can’t make you mine_

Marianne stared at the page blankly, trying to understand what she had just read. It couldn’t be… but she recognized his handwriting by then, she knew the sharp, clean lines, she knew he had written it.

But what  _was_  it? Well, aside from very very dramatic. Slowly a smile began to rise to her face. She turned the page.

There was more. And more. She scanned them, biting her lip now, trying not to laugh. There was nothing funny about what had inspired them - and it was very obvious what had inspired them - but it was just… it was the last, the very last, thing she would have expected the Bog King to do! Destroy primroses, ban love, isolate himself completely - all completely natural responses. But to write - to write a whole book’s worth! Of poetry! Marianne was beside herself.

She hadn’t meant to lose track of time, skimming the pages, trying to figure out when they were written. How recent did they go up to - in fact, Marianne still didn’t know how much time there had been between his Fateful Day and when they had first met.

Marianne heard the door open, but didn’t even register it until she heard her lover’s voice. “Marianne?” Confusion more than impatience coloring his voice. “If you couldn’t find it, ye could have just said… what are you doing?” 

She hadn’t so much as made an attempt to hide her findings as scuttled back till she was pressed back to the wall with the journal behind her, trying with all her might not to laugh. “I-I’m not doing anything! Nope! Not a thing!”

“Marianne…” He warned, looking very wary indeed. A giggle escaped before she could stop herself. It didn’t help at all that his eyes widened when she did, his mind slowly putting together the pieces and coming to the exact right conclusion. When he spoke next his voice was a frantic croak of her name “MARIANNE!”

“I’m sorry!” She said, knowing very well that she wasn’t sorry at all and knowing that he knew that, since she couldn’t stop laughing. “I’m sorry I just- I stumbled on it- I didn’t mean-!”

“ _Give it back_!”

“What? No way! This is a gold mine!” She flew up, hovering out of his reach. 

“Do continue to take pleasure in my humiliation,” he growled, his cheeks a very vivid red. 

She laughed. “I will, thanks.” His next growl was wordless, and, feeling safe, she opened the journal to where she had been - reading aloud for his benefit. “’ _No one knows what it’s like to feel these feelings_ ’ - feel these feelings, really? Very deep, Bog,” she said solemnly. 

He made a lunge for the journal, growling something that might have been her name, but the attempt was half-hearted. Marianne relaxed further - she knew how Bog would be behaving if he were truly, truly upset by this. Sure, he was embarrassed - squirming and nervous as she studied the outpourings of his past heartache - but he wasn’t angry. The amount of trust that showed almost made Marianne want to give him a break and give it up.

 _Almost_.

“Were these poems or songs? Should I try singing them? ’Oohh  _Love hurts_ ’” she sang out, placing one hand on her heart as she held the book before her, like a player giving a dramatic monologue.

If possible, Bog blanched further. “Don’t ye dare, tough girl.”

She flashed him a wicked grin and continued. “’ _Some fools fool themselves but they’re not fooling me_ ’- Hah! I think we had this conversation the night we met!”

Bog actually smiled, a bitter, one sided thing but she was pleased all the same. “Indeed, it was like you’d taken the words out of my mouth.”

“We’re perfect for each other,” she cooed, letting herself settle back to the floor and poking her lover’s long nose in the process. Smiling when he scowled at her, she returned her attention to the book. “’ _Love is a plague_ -’ You sure like the word plague, don’t you? That’s the third time I’ve seen it. Plague and pain and pestilence and-” he had lunged to grab it again and she took off once more, glad for the high ceilings. 

Marianne was paging through, now, looking for one that stood out to her to further embarrass him when once again the sheer amount of writing he had done struck her. “This is so weird,” she said, more to herself.

Still he heard her. “Gods, what have you found now?” 

She looked up, startled. “Oh no, that’s not what I meant. I just-” she waved the book, landing a little ways from him. “It’s so strange that you…  _created_ so much from this- from your pain. I was the one to destroy.” When he blinked, looking confused, she elaborated. “I had a journal, like this. It was full of nothing but my girlish dreams about Roland.”

“ _Oh_.”

“Yeah. Oh I would go on and on and _on_ about him. It makes  _this_  look good.” Bog made a face at her and she grinned. “Thankfully you’re never gonna get to see it. I set it on fire after I called off the wedding.”

Bog’s leafy eyebrows raised in surprise. “On fire?”

“Oh I ripped it up, too. All my innocent little daydreams - up in flames! It was violent and destructive and I loved every second of it.”

“I can imagine, you mad creature.”

Marianne hummed innocently, and returned to inspecting the book. There were still plenty of empty pages in the back and she leafed through until she could find the last entry. “How long has it been since you wrote in this thing?” She asked. 

There was a long silence before “Well- um- a-about tha- that is-”

“That recently, huh?”

That received some very incoherent murmuring. She had turned away from him but she could here his claws clacking together as he wrung his hands; it positively delighted her. 

“Huh. ‘ _Nothing prepared me for the privilege of being yours_ …’ This is awfully romantic for you? Did I skip to the beginning by mistake?”

His response was a determined silence and she laughed quietly. However, her self-satisfied smile died as she read on… 

 _If I had only felt the warmth within your touch_  
If I had only seen how you smile when you blush  
Or how you curl your lip when you concentrate enough

There was something in here. Something about the small details. Marianne felt the breath catch in her throat. “’ _I would have known what… I’ve been… living f-’_ Bog, is this,” she swallowed, barely able to comprehend it. He said, more or less, that it was recent… and the shift in tone… 

“Is this… a-about  _me_?”

The Bog King’s shoulders rattled with a nervous twitch and his face was so red she thought he might combust but he managed a nod. “Ah- um- yes. The-there are a- well- a few, actually.”

He hadn’t even finished the sentence before Marianne was pealing through the pages prior, scanning over the words, the lines. 

“W-when did you?”

He cleared his throat. “Some um- some mornings, right after you’d leave.”

“’ _The birds start their screaming, as you let go of my hand_ …’” She was reading aloud still but a murmur, soft and to herself. 

“These are really… good,” she said, needing  _something_  else to say. He looked away, grumbling something noncommittal. Not about to let him sink into self-deprecation - especially when she was serious about this - she fluttered up to him, willing to risk being in arms length for this. “Really, they are. I can barely tell the same person wrote these.”

Bog snorted, but he met her eye, coming closer so scant inches were between them. “I’ve had _incomparable_  inspiration,” he said, his voice low. Marianne’s blush burst anew at the heat in his voice and in the words. He leaned in but she caught the shift in his focus at the last second and flew back before he could grab the journal from her hands.

“Too slow!” She called.

“Marianne!” His voice was somewhere between a growl and a whine, but he let her go all the same.

Marianne had every intention of reading the rhapsodies of her name and person loudly, dramatically announce her  _incomparableness_  to the room, but the words stuck in her throat the more she read. The implications of this information truly settling down on her. 

He wrote about her. He wrote about her on his own time, when they were apart. Roland had always been so public with his displays of affection. In fact, later on, Marianne had come to realize that he  _only_  ever spoke about his feelings for her when others were around to see or hear them. At the time she had felt flattered, proud that he was so proud of their relationship - of her, but it was clear now that it had only been for show, an act.

That Bog wrote these, these beautiful heartfelt things… that there were mornings after she had returned to her kingdom where he had taken out this book, wrought with inspiration, and thought of her so intently. She imagined him trying words and syllables over, muttering to himself as he did, trying to fittingly express just how deeply he loved her.

And none of it was for show. None of it was even for her to see. He loved her so strongly it simply… overflowed.

She had never experienced anything like it. She had never felt so loved in her life.

“Marianne?” Bog’s voice intruded on her thoughts, having noticed her long stretch of silence. After she didn’t respond, he spoke again, panicked. “Marianne, love, are you crYING?”

“No! NO! No, I- I am definitely, not. Not crying. I just- there’s dust. Yeah.” Marianne blinked very rapidly, landed before him again, trying to smile. His blue eyes searched her face in concern and she quickly diverted his thoughts. “Here,” she said, thrusting the book back at him. Before he could take it from her she pulled it back again. “One condition.”

Now the wariness returned to his expression, his face pinched together. “Name it…” he said, with the clear undertone of ‘Please don’t let me regret this’. She smiled. 

“ _Read it to me_.”


	11. You're Holding Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bog asks Marianne to dance. She refuses.
> 
> a drabble.

_He looked ready to ask again_ , Marianne thought, and scanned the ballroom quickly for a distraction she hadn’t used yet. Distressingly, few were available; Dawn was occupied - dancing with Sunny, they had already eaten, gotten refreshments twice, she had _run into_  three _acquaintances_ , and it was RAINING and therefor effectively ruining any suggestion of ‘lets go get some air’.  

She could just let him ask, of course. It wasn’t so hard for her to say no, in fact it was one thing Marianne prided herself on being very good at.

Marianne bit back a sigh. He’d ask why, though. Not to pry, not to question her decision, but simply because The Bog King was endlessly curious about her, her thoughts and her life. It was endearing, to have someone so innocently interested in who she was, no ulterior motives, no plans for what to do with information but to have it, to understand her better. 

He might think it was about him - oh he probably would, given his insecurities. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, watching him look between her and the dancers, the dreaded question obviously taking form in his head. If it weren’t that she loved him too much Marianne would be tempted to let Bog think that was her reason; it probably wouldn’t be  _wrong_  anyways… but she couldn’t do that to him. 

God why had she even invited him if she was going to hold him at arms length all night?

Easy answer: she hadn’t. Dawn had dragged them both. 

And here they were.

“Marianne?” She started almost violently at the soft address, and when she turned to Bog he was looking down at her in equal parts confusion and concern. “Everything… alright, tough girl?”

“Fine!” She said, waving a hand dismissively. “Just… got lost in thought… a bit.”

He studied her a moment longer before choosing to drop it, shrugging his shoulders so the plates rattled a bit. Some silence stretched bewteen them and she felt his eyes drift to the ballroom floor and back to her once more.  _Please don’t_ , she pleaded quietly.  _There’s only a few songs left, please don’t ask_.

He cleared his throat and her prayers were crushed. “I wasn’t sure if- that is, did you want to… “ She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the blow.

“Would you like to dance?”

 _There it was_. Marianne’s wings twitched behind her. “Do I- do I want t-to  _d-dance_?” She laughed, high and nervous and a bit hysterical. “Well. Um- I- that’s- I’m not sure I really- we don’t- well, I mean-” she trailed off, mentally kicking and cursing herself as she watched Bog’s face fall. 

“That’s a no, I take it.” He said, his voice quiet and the words clipped short.

“No!” She said quickly. “Well, I mean,  _yes_. But not because- It’s not that I don’t  _want_ to!” she added desperately, and was rewarded when his eyes flicked away from the floor and back to her face. _Good_. She tried to begin again. “I just…” 

A dozen lies came to mind; I’d rather talk to you, there’s too many people out there, I don’t know this song… but they all sounded so defensive and dismissive and god the amount of courage she knew Bog must have worked up just to ask… he deserved more from her.

“I… can’t.” She mumbled, feeling her cheeks beginning to burn already. 

She was looking at her hands and she wrung them in front of her, but she could picture Bog’s dejected expression as he mumbled. “Oh.”

She shook her head, although she couldn’t look up yet. “No, Bog,” She said, firmly. “Listen - it isn’t about if I want to.  _I_.  _can’t_.” 

A few seconds of silence while she waited to see if the message had gotten to him. Finally, “You mean… you don’t know how?” 

She laughed a little at the honest confusion in his voice. She could imagine him looking between her and Dawn at this very moment. “Oh, I know _how_. It’s just never really…  _took_ , you know. I’m terrible, I’m uncoordinated, I’m damn well  _humiliating_ , I’m-” she waved her hands again trying to find the words to describe just how god-awful she was at any sort of choreographed, rhythmic movement. “It’s really- you don’t want to risk it, Bog, seriously. I’ve run people into walls before, stepped on feet- what?” She cut off suddenly at the choked sound Bog was making. 

Looking the long way up at him, Marianne watched, a little confused as he covered his mouth with one large hand, his shoulders quivering and rattling. He was… laughing, she realized, awed. Truly. full-on, _laughing_. Out of the corner of her eye Marianne saw people looking over in nothing short of wonder; the almighty Bog King,  _laughing_. No one would ever believe them. 

Unable to help herself, a smile began to sprout on Marianne’s face, even as she stayed red as a strawberry. “Oh great. Thanks, Bog. I just bare my insecurities to you and you laugh in my face. You’re a real sweetheart. Remind me not to tell you anything ever again.”

“I’m sorry, love,” Bog said, waving one hand in an effort to pacify her. “I’m no- I’m no’ laughin _at_  ye.” Yes he was, and they both knew it, but the attempt was touching all the same. “I jist- ye and I are hackin each other half t’death every other night and yer worried about steppin on my _feet_?”

Marianne bristled, her face positively glowing. “You know what I mean! I’m bad, really  _really_ bad at this. I’m not a good partner and I know it. Even when Roland was doing everything in his power to  _woo_  me he knew better than to unleash me out there.” She gestured to the dance floor. 

Bog sobered a little and Marianne winced at the comment she hadn’t meant to add. In truth,  _no one_  had asked her to dance for a very long time and she had always chosen to prefer it that way. She didn’t want to dance, she didn’t care to dance, it didn’t matter.

But when Bog spoke again all laughter was gone and the earnest quality to his voice made her heart clench. “Do you want to dance?” 

She didn’t miss the emphasis. She groaned a little. “I do,” she said, and it was the truth. “But-”

“I want to dance with ye, Mari, and I couldn’t care less how we look to anyone else.” He extended his hand to her. Marianne looked at it and then at him… then at the ballroom floor. Her eyes fell to Dawn and Sunny managing their height difference with more grace than Marianne figured she possessed. But they were happy and in love and that was more apparent than skill in how they moved and… that’s what she wanted.

Smiling, although her cheeks still burned, she put her hand in his and mentally decided any further embarrassment was worth it for the way those blue eyes lit up.  

“I will say,” he continued as he walked her out - the last song of the night beginning around them - his tone suspiciously off-hand. “I am glad my folk don’t have the same focus on dancing for mating as yours do.” 

She elbowed him. “Shut up, Bog.”

 _Shut up and dance with me_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song referencesss *jazz-hands off stage*


	12. A Gentle Someone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fairy king witnesses a party, a storm, and a conversation. drabble

****

The Bog King was at. his. party.

 _Alright_ , King Dagda allowed himself,  _it wasn’t exactly_ his _party_. Just because it was a fairy celebration and he was their king didn’t necessarily make it  _his_ party. All the same, It was still not the most pleasant thing to see when entering for the evening, made worse by the sight of his eldest daughter close at his side, the two of them in a corner of the room, tucked into a shadow. Marianne deserved all the light in the room.

He should have been glad to see her at all, and in a way he was. Marianne hadn’t willingly gone to any parties at all in the year following her canceled wedding, and still avoided them fair frequently after she had begun her courtship with the neighboring king -  _really eating your words about her finding a king, aren’t you?_  When she came to anything it was always with the Bog King in tow, always the two of them hovering at the edges of celebration the goblin’s distaste for such fanfare written clearly on his face.

Just then he watched as the king stooped a little to grumble something to Marianne. Dagda watched his daughter throw her head back with laughter, and felt himself soften a little, even if he was sure he would not have appreciated the joke. For his part, the Bog King stood a little straighter, looking proud of himself for getting that reaction.

He forced himself to look at something else, pay attention to the rest of his guests, taking some peace in the knowledge that none of his subjects seemed to openly be against the Bog King’s presence. The last thing he wanted was a scene, and besides, as he continued to remind himself as often as he could, the king made Marianne happy - he didn’t want that ruined for her. 

The party was going on, Marianne and the Bog King in their corner, Dagda decidedly not watching them, for some time before a mass of fairies suddenly came rushing in from the ballroom’s balcony, quickly shutting the doors behind them. 

“What is it?” He called to them, not liking the panic in their movements. “What’s happened?”

“Storm is coming, sire,” a fairy lad said, his own voice shaking. “Looks nasty. Should be hitting any minute.” 

On cue a rumble of thunder echoed around them, muffled by the walls but unmistakable. Dagda felt his gut clench with an instinctual fear, as did just about every fairy in the ballroom. They began speaking fast and fluttering about in nothing short of terror. Fairies did not like rain as it was, and storms were something more entirely. 

Finally he let his voice break through the increasingly panicked crowd. “Everyone remain calm. The palace is secure - simply follow my guard to our innermost rooms. You will be informed when it passes.”

The mass began to move about as orderly as a fear-seized group could, and Dagda sighed a little shakily. This wasn’t the first time a storm had erupted during a party, and the plan was always the same, but fairies were nervous creatures by nature and when a natural fear was involved more logical action was always difficult to remember. He could only be glad this was a fairy ball and not an elf festival, typically held outdoors. The last time that had happened, his poor Marianne had had a proper panic attack. 

He froze at the thought, thinking first that Marianne must be utterly terrified right then, and then that he hadn’t actually seen Marianne among the crowd. No, nor had he seen the Bog King - who was impossible to miss. Searching the quickly emptying ballroom, he caught the sight of an amber-encrusted staff leaning on the wall… 

… next to the doors to the balcony. 

Now truly terrified, the fairy king ceased paying any attention to his subjects and flew fast as he was able down to the closed doorways. Dagda could hear the wind pick up, pressing at the walls. He imagined the overhang of the balcony would not be doing an adequate job at keeping them dry.

Thunder shook the entire building, echoing around the room, and he was ready to barge in, demand to know why the Bog King was putting his daughter in such danger when he heard Marianne… laugh. It was high, a little breathless, but it was a  _laugh_. Of all things.

“Woooh!” She gasped out. “That- That was… a lot.”

Dagda stopped, surprised by the tone of Marianne’s voice. He’d never heard her sound so  _excited_ about a storm.

“Mmm. It’s close.”

That voice was both barely audible and barely recognizable. Dagda had never thought that the Bog King’s voice could get so… gentle, relaxed. 

Marianne made a humming noise. “Not as bad much as the one last month.”  _They’d done this before?_

“Oh, aye. That was a bad one - If ye survived that, Tough Girl, you’ve got nothin to worry about.”

“Comforting thought,” she said. A short silence passed before she added - so mind-boggingly relaxed still. “Have you ever flown in one of these before?”

“How daft d’ye think I am?”

More laughter. “Would you like the honest answer or the one that would make you happiest? Hey!” She added with a soft  _oof_ sound. “I was teasing.”

“Yer sense of humor leaves much to be desired, Marianne.”

“Like you’re much better.”

There was an enormous roll of thunder which instinctively made Dagda want to move away from the edge of the palace, toward shelter and security, although he didn’t dare leave Marianne just yet. 

On cue, his daughter made a small shriek at the thunder. The sound almost relieved him; the calm, conversational Marianne was so unlike her attitude in storms that he could hardly comprehend it. 

The Bog King said nothing about her response, instead when he spoke again his voice was if anything softer than before. “I’ve flown in the rain before, but never a storm. I don’t think it’s as… detrimental to my wings as it would be to yours. That said, I wouldn’t want to do it regularly.”

“So, that’s not how you got-” Dagda knew what Marianne was likely gesturing towards - the holes and tears in the wings of the Dark Forest’s king were obvious to everyone although no fairy would have dared comment on it. 

“No.”

“… you’re not going to tell me how you  _did_ , are you?”

“A conversation for another day.”

“Tease.” Her voice had been trembling, ever so slightly, but he could already hear it slowly returning to a calmer state. Her conversation with the Bog King seemingly enough to wipe out a phobia Dagda knew existed in her daughter for over ten years. Nothing he had ever been able to have this affect on her, ever been able to send away her fears, much as he wanted to. Marianne had always accepted his attempts, but this was so much different.

There was a soft noise that it took a moment for him to place as the Bog King’s laughter. Well if there was ever a sound the fairy king thought he would never hear in his life… could this get any more surreal?

For a moment all that could be heard was the rain, and the wind, and the occasional rumble of more distant thunder. Then his daughter spoke again. “Thanks.”

“What for?” The Bog King sounded honestly baffled. 

“This. Taking me out here, helping me… sharing this with me,” she sighed gustily. “I would have never experienced anything like this - and these are beautiful. I’d never have done this without you.” 

When the Bog King spoke again he was decidedly flustered. “How much wine have ye had tonight?”

She snorted. “What? Am I waxing too poetic? I’m trying to thank you and you call me drunk - thanks, Bog.”

He laughed. “You’re welcome. And I’m- ah- I’m glad this makes ye happy.”

Dagda was increasingly aware of just how much he was eavesdropping now on a private moment in their relationship. This was a side of Marianne he had long since resigned himself to believing she had given up, a side to the Bog King he had steadfastly believed could not exist. This was gentleness and affection and he knew he shouldn’t have been so surprised, but… knowing his daughter was so loved. It was everything he could have wished for for her. 

It was an odd time to have the revelation, but Dagda found himself smiling at it. He turned and went to return to his more fear-filled subjects. 

His daughter didn’t need him, right then.

* * *

“We should go in,” the Bog King said, lifting his arm from his lover’s shoulders. They were leaning against the damp railing, watching the flowers get pelted relentlessly with sheets of cold rain. It wasn’t as lovely as it was in the forest, he thought, but enjoyable all the same. Marianne  _boo_ ’d at this idea and he chuckled. “It’s slowing down already and the gods only know that your sister is probably wondering where you are.”

“Dawn knows we do this,” Marianne said, and then winced. “Oh damn, but dad doesn’t. He’s probably a wreck.” 

“Ah. We can’t have that,” Bog said dryly. “Why haven’t ye told him, then?”

She gave a huffing sort of laugh. “I don’t think he’d believe me.” 


	13. The Way the Story Goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU drabble where Dawn isn’t Love Potioned but still kidnapped and so Bog has to deal with a princess who isn’t in love with him.
> 
> AKA Dawn is Very Sassy and Bog has No Idea What To Do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mainly, I just wanted to write more non-love-potioned Dawn because sometimes I wish we could have seen more of that. She’s afraid and upset but she is definitely Marianne’s sister. She can sass with the best of them. And she’s preceptive enough to understand Bog even if she’s not in love with him.
> 
> So. Here. Enjoy.

She was brought immediately to the dungeon and hadn’t so much physically tried to get away as screamed her defiance at the guards until their eardrums couldn’t handle it. They came to him and began to explain to him what she had been saying before he waved them off: he had heard her. He had damned well heard everything.

Damn the acoustics in that castle. 

And so the Bog King went to see his captive princess, if for no other reason than to shut her up. He didn’t really want to see her - didn’t want to gloat, didn’t want to intimidate. Frankly he just wanted the love potion back, so he could give her back and the two kingdoms could go back to peaceful isolation. 

She sat on the mushroom bed, cross-legged, her nose in the air. Though her posture spoke of defiance, he could see tear-tracks on her face. Bog didn’t know if her hair had gotten mussed in her sack or if it always looked like, like a mix between a dandelion and a sweet gum ball. Her hair and wings and soft blue clothing seemed to soak up what lamplight was thrown on her, making her a spot of light in the dark surroundings. Dawn, he remembered her being called - and it suited her. 

She glared at him when he arrived. It was a poor second to the glare the elder princess possessed, ready to stop his heart by its intensity alone should her sword have failed to do so first, but it was a fierce thing all the same. 

“What are you going to do with me?” Her voice quivered a little, betraying her fearful state. 

Bog blinked. “Nothing,” he said coldly, before adding, as an afterthought. “Nothing unless provoked. You’re simply bait, little princess - an’ that’s no good if your harmed.”

“Why can’t you just get the potion back yourself?” she asked. 

He glared at her. “It was your folk who stole it, why should I be the one to retrieve it?”

“It’s a risk, if they don’t get it-”

“What risk?” He snarled, coming close and wrapping his fingers round the bars to her cell. “My pretty little fairy princess, there’s a reason  _you’re_  our bait. No doubt your father is wasting no time in returning what is mine.” 

This apparently was not reassuring and he watched as her wide blue eyes filled again. Bog wasn’t sure what to do about that; he could handle screaming, he wasn’t sure what to do about tears. Absurdly, he wanted to say something to comfort her. Her situation  _really_ wasn’t hardly dire; Bog had no doubt her ransom would be paid in full long before the moon set. He’d see her unharmed in the meantime… 

_Being held by a creature as hideous as him was worthy of tears. However impermanent the situation._

He shook the thought and continued. “I know what I’m doin. There’s a reason I didn’t take your little elf for all that he was guilty.” Belatedly, Bog figured he could have taken him, too. 

“What?” She asked, her voice hoarse. Apparently she knew him.  

“The elf,” he said simply. “Small little thing. Sundrop, or Sunny or somethin of that.”

“No,” Dawn said, wide-eyed. Bog noted with some horror that her tears had overflowed. “Sunny wouldn’t- he doesn’t need a- I mean we’re- but he- you’re lying!”

“He admitted it himself!” Bog snapped before thinking, too late, that that might have been a bad idea, 

“No, he wouldn’t do that!” She seemed ready to say something else, but nothing came out but a choked noise. Now she was crying in earnest. 

Bog panicked. “WAit- I- P-please don’t- don’t do that,” he said, faltering and tripping over words, guilt squirming at him.  _Well done, Bog_. “Look- look it doesn’t- I’m sure he’s…  _lovely_ ,” he ground out for lack of a better word. Dawn sniffed and peered at him, seemingly surprised by the earnest tone to his voice. “But you see,  _this_  is what love does to someone. It weakens them, it  _ruins_ , it-” he trailed off now when the princess made a very undignified un-fairy-princess-like snort. 

“You sound like my sister,” she said to his questioning expression. Her tone was odd, upset and exasperated but oddly… affectionate. The comparison was not meant to be a compliment, but finding the similarity seemed to please her.

Bog fought the urge to rub his jaw again, remembering the tiny princess with a mean right hook, her eyes promising the worst kind of murder imaginable. Perversely, he found himself hoping she would be the one to get the potion to him and reclaim her sister. He wouldn’t mind facing off with her again.

Quietly, so much that Bog barely heard her Dawn dryly added, “Skies, you would love her.” 

Her started almost violently, embarrassed as much by her words as by the track his own thoughts had been on. “I. Don’t.  _Love_.” He snarled before he could stop himself. But Dawn, although having initially jumped at his reaction, didn’t appear as frightened of his snarling now. While he didn’t wish to make her cry again Bog suddenly found he’d prefer it to the almost satisfied expression she had on now. “Were ye not listening, princess? Love is dangerous, destructive, for fools and children-”

“You keep talking,” she cut in, the smallest hint of an actual bloody  _smile_. “But all I hear is  _Marianne_.” His next growl was wordless, but she was on a roll now. “I am not a fool and I’m not a child, no matter what  _either_ of you think, and if you want to be bitter and lonely, go right ahead, but it’s not love that’s the problem.”

 _Then explain what happened with your elf_ , Bog thought but was too smart to say aloud again. Still he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, bring her to some sense, but he suspected that would do nothing in assuring her that he wasn’t like her sister. The last thing he needed was another matchmaker in his life, or for his prisoner to be feeling _familial_ to him. 

He shouldn’t even  _care_. Let her go on with her innocent dreams, let her be crushed as he had. But even as he thought it, he knew he would never want that. Never want anyone to go through his heartache - wasn’t that why he had banned the love potion to begin with? 

The last thing he needed was to be feeling protective of his prisoner.

When he said nothing, simply glaring at her struck some kind of speechless, Dawn stretched. “I can’t wait for Marianne to get here. She’s either going to kill you or marry you.”

Bog would not give her the satisfaction of startling him, though startle him she continued to do. “I’m not goin to marry anyone, princess. And nor is she likely, if she’s anything like you’ve said.”

She put her chin in her hands. “Ah, you’re perfect for each other. The perfect union of two angry, stubborn, isolated, lonely people.”

“That’s the second time ye’ve said tha’ - what on earth makes you think I’m  _lonely_.”

Dawn let out a piercing “Hah!” and refused to elaborate past it.

He threw up his hands. “Why am I even still talkin to you, ye mad creature. Go- go sleep or something, as long as your finished with your screaming.”

“Would you prefer I sang?” She said sweetly.

“NO!”

“Fine,” she said, stretching a second time. “I’ll sleep then. Let me know when my sister gets here, if you’re still alive.” She settled, turning so her back was to him. “Goodnight, Boggy.”

“It’s Bog. King.”

She waved her hand blithely. “Whatever.”

When she seemed settled, he found himself muttering “Goodnight,” in turn, though he couldn’t say why. With a shake of his head, he shut the doors to her cell, and wondered what in all the gods’ names he had gotten himself into.


	14. Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four people Marianne let herself belong to. A drabble.

My Butterfly

It was her mother’s name for her. Spoken softly in lullabies and in soothing the young princess’s fears or pains.  _It’s alright my little butterfly, I’m here_. It was love and comfort and in that moment Marianne wasn’t  _Crown Princess_  with rules and decorum of what she could say and not say, do and not do. She didn’t belong to a kingdom, she belonged to a mom.

She had loved being her mother’s butterfly. In that moment, that was enough. That was all she needed to be.

* * *

My Future Queen

Roland was as charming as he was handsome and as such had won the hearts of all the nobility early on To have your name tied with his was all one could wish for. Marianne was his many things; his darling, his sweetheart, his buttercup, but she liked  _my future queen_  the best by far. It spoke of a partnership, her Queen to his King. Together.

When everything shattered perhaps it hurt most of all to know that, for all his flowery words, in the end she had been _nothing_ to him.

* * *

My Champion

She heard Dawn say it to Sunny once, her voice dripping sarcasm, the two of them believing that they had escaped her. The title came out synonymous with  _guard_ or even  _jailer_. Marianne never let Dawn know she heard it, never tried to defend her desire to keep her safe, however intense her methods may be. Her baby sister deserved nothing less.

Instead Marianne wore  _Her Sister’s Champion_  as a badge of honor. She would protect Dawn - she was the only one who could.

* * *

My Tough Girl

He had called her that more often than she could count, but it was the first time he had called her _his_. She stiffened and the Bog King quickly backpedalled, seeming to think that it was her favorite epithet that she had inexplicably taken offense to, not what had preceded it. Marianne listened to him with half an ear, her mind still stuck on being  _his_.

It might have startled her, scared her even, with how much it was true. But she didn’t feel less whole in belonging, in part, to someone else.

She cut him off at last, brushing his lips softly with her own, stunning him into blush-y silence. Marianne grinned.

He belonged to  _her_ , too.


	15. Fluer Du Jour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU - Bog, Marianne and Dawn go to a Renaissance Faire. Delicate Jewelry is considered, purchased, and presented. A drabble.

“Our roses take an 3 week process to fully dry, bake and be dipped in several coats of resin before being used in our jewelry.”

Bog was only half listening to the woman behind the counter, focused more on Marianne’s face as she trailed careful fingers over the preserved flowers, stiff and sturdy in their resin coating. Smaller unopened buds hung from woven cords and smelt overwhelmingly of roses, but his girlfriend’s focus was on a few of the larger, open roses, the tips dipper in gold and attached to a golden chain. 

“Would you like to try it on?” The artisan asked. Marianne looked up, startled and quickly shook her head.

“No, no. Just looking… thanks.”

He watched her brush her fingers delicately over the necklace, and almost wanted to laugh at the contrast. Marianne was in black tights, charcoal grey shorts, and her leather jacket for warmth over a faded purple tank-top. She looked like the very last person one would expect to see at a Renaissance Faire, much less to be wearing such a dainty rose necklace. 

But Bog didn’t laugh, too enraptured by her unguarded awe. Marianne’s mask of feign-indifference had been steadily slipping all day, and he had been told by her sister when at one point she had pulled him away how much the Faires meant to her, back when she and Dawn were children… when their mother was alive.

“Mom was a Fairie Queen - got all done up in the most glittery skirts and pretty earth colored makeup and worked the faire every year.” Dawn told him. “She made the Faires so personal and magical for us and when she died, well… it wasn’t the same, it was… heavy. I still take Sunny every year but Marianne tried to say she outgrew all this ‘silliness’.”

Bog had been inclined to believe Marianne in this case, and also didn’t see why, if Renaissance Faires brought back bad memories, Dawn was so pushing her to go back.

An easy answer apparently: “Because she’s happy now, really happy. Because she has you to share it with. Oh, please say you’ll go this year, Boggy. I swear, this will make her happy.”

And now as he watched her re-experience the whole Faire through his eyes (everything was loud and crowded and smelt like dirt, sweat and fried food - and he wasn’t even going to go into some of the things he’d seen people wearing), Bog was able to see that Dawn had been right. It was a nostalgic happiness, but it was happiness all the same that lit her brown eyes. It wasn’t something he would have ever expected her to like but now that he was watching her surrounded by it, it fit, it looked right. 

The necklace, delicate and sweet, felt like an extension of that. It didn’t look like it should fit her, but as she picked it up, running a thumb over petrified petals, Bog thought nothing in the world would fir her better.

Dawn had been petting a dog with fairy wings and joined them at the stall. She caught what her older sister was looking at and crooned, “How pretty. How much are they?”

“The buds are thirty,” the lady said promptly. “That one,” with a gesture to the one Marianne was still cradling, “is fifty-five.”

She fumbled, as if she was about to drop it, and quickly set it back on the table as though it had burned her. Bog had noticed the prices of a number of different goods and was actually surprised; for what he had seen of the roses’ quality, it actually seemed pretty reasonable.

Marianne did not seem to agree and was now whispering with Dawn. He was hovering at the corner of the stall, trying not to obviously listen in. 

“Do you want it?”

“Not for fifty-five bucks I don’t.”

“Mari, do you  _see_  how nice that is? Totally worth it.”

“Yeah, but we’ve still got the rest of the Faire to walk and I don’t want to impulsively blow everything-”

“Oh please, I saw how you were looking at it - you’re smitten. That is way not impulsive.”

“Dawn-”

Silently. Bog slid in next to the girls, who were too busy arguing over the potential purchase to notice him and looked closer at the necklace.  _No_ , he decided after a moment,  _fifty-five wasn’t unreasonable at all_. 

He caught the eye of the lady behind the stall - watching Marianne and Dawn argue and wringing her hands. He tapped two fingers on the necklace, and jerked his head at Marianne, hoping his intent was clear. The merchant furrowed her brow until he repeated the gesture, a bit more emphatically. He held up a hand. 

_Pack up that necklace for her - I’ll be back in five._

Her expression cleared and she nodded fractionally. She looked between Bog and Marianne and her smile dimpled. He refrained from rolling his eyes; Okay,  _yes_ he was buying expensive jewelry for his girlfriend. That wasn’t that big of a deal… who was he kidding? He was in deep for this girl and at this point, he didn’t care who knew.

“Were we going to get food?” He asked when the two sisters had stopped their arguing. Marianne had made no move to pick the necklace back up again so Bog felt safe in assuming that she wasn’t going to buy it.

“Good idea!” Marianne said, before Dawn could answer. “I’ve been starving all afternoon. There’re turkey legs just around the corner - wanna split one?”

He shrugged. “Fine by me. Long as the line isn’t a mile long.”

“No promises there,” she said, grinning. She linked arms with him and turned to her sister. “Come on, Dawn.” 

The blonde pouted a little but nodded. “Thank you,” she told the worker, apologetically. The woman simply nodded, her smile still impish.

The line was indeed a mile long. Bog counted his blessings. 

Just as the three of them took their place at the end, Bog made a show of patting the inside of his leather bomber jacket. “Shit,” he muttered. “I think I left my wallet at the last stall.”

“Bog!” Marianne squeaked. “Oh my god - go! Run!”

He chuckled. “I’m going, I’m going. Just- stay here.”

“Like I’m abdicating our spot in this kind of line, loser,” she laughed. “Now, go.”

Bog had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, and returned to collect his gift.

* * *

Two hours later, the sky beginning to pink with early evening, Bog dropped an exhausted Dawn back at the Fairwood household and went about taking Marianne back to her apartment.

Marianne was dusty and looked as dead-tired as her sister, but still happy. She hadn’t bought anything but food from the Faire and Bog felt the necklace bag in his inner pocket like it was burning. 

“Thanks for coming out,” she told him, standing outside her entryway. “I hope it wasn’t too scarring.”

He shook his head. “It was… an adventure.” She snorted. “And I’m glad you let me… have it with you.” 

Marianne smiled, soft and almost shy. “It- it was good to go back.”

Bog braced himself against that smile. “Um- I have somethin for ye.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh? Do tell.”

“Close your eyes - it’s a surprise.”

“You didn’t get me a library, did you?” she teased, even as she obliged his request. Bog rolled his eyes, digging the rose necklace out of his pocket. 

“Turn around,” he said softly. She did, and he gently draped the necklace over her neck, clasping it at the nape of her neck. Her hand flew up to touch the pendant at the end and he felt her start. A moment later she gasped softly and Bog knew she had opened her eyes.

“You asshole!” She cried, turning to him, and poking his chest accusingly. But her cheeks were burning red and her eyes glistened. “When did you- why did you even - it was like sixty dollars, Bog!”

He felt his own face reddening. “I- early birthday gift?”

“My birthday is in April, you ass,” she repeated. “Seriously, why?”

Bog shrugged, watching as she continued to so softly stoke the flower that sat at her throat. “It suits you.”

Marianne stared at him incredulously. “Thaankss,” she drawled. Still, her eyes were drawn back to the necklace and Bog could see her going through the same thought process he had when he had first seen her pick it up. It was sturdy but delicate, soft but substantial, beautiful and tough. It was everything feminine that she often liked to laugh at, but was undeniably part of what she loved.

She looked back at him and repeated the sentiment, this time so soft it was nearly a whisper. “Thank you.”

And she pulled him down to kiss her, all Bog could smell was roses.


	16. Fight or Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Halloween Butterfly Bog drabble from the prompt: “You were working at a Haunted House and I freaked out and punched you in the face and I might have broke your nose”

Marianne, sitting in the waiting room of the ER two nights before Halloween, wrung her hands before she was thinking. Her split knuckles screamed at her and she pulled her hands apart and shoved them under her legs. Too late, she realized that was no better and pulled them out again, something between a wince, a whimper and a frustrated growl escaping her.

The tall stranger she sat next to, looked over at her, his large hands still holding a damp towel under his nose - a bloody mess, literally. His stage makeup was wiped off in the process in places. If anything, it made him look more uncanny, but Marianne doubted an actual zombie would bleed like that.

He raised a bushy eyebrow at her awkward flailing about. “You okay there, Tough Girl?” He asked dryly. 

She glared at him, valiantly ignoring the guilt squirming at her gut knowing that the blood was her doing. “Don’t call me that,” she grumbled.

“I’ll stop once I find something else that fits you better,” he said, a smugness to his voice, even if his voice was nasally from it being plugged with blood. She wanted to punch him again. This time would have been more justified than the first; a startled reaction, her gut response to being frightened or cornered.

This is why she never should have let Dawn talk her into going to a Haunted House; her fight or flight response was always  _fight_.

She settled for another growl. “Well, you’re pissed-”

“Not at you,” said the Haunted House employee who had had the unfortunate pleasure of facing her fight-response. Marianne looked at him, startled before her eyes narrowed suspiciously. He held one hand up, the other still holding the rag to his face. “If I were pissed, Tough Girl, ye’d know.”

“So your being a snarky asshole has nothing to do with the fact that I broke your knows?”

He smirked, but something in the gesture looked almost bashful. “Snarky asshole is my default, actually. And you didn’t break my nose.” 

“It’s still my fault. You were just doing your job and I-” She clenched her fists and glared at her irritated knuckles.

“Ye’ve got a nice right hook, I’ll give ye that.” he said, and Marianne thought he sounded genuinely impressed. “Tough Girl.”

She glared, although she felt her cheeks heating up inexplicably. The fluorescent lights weren’t flattering on the dent she had made his face, but it did add a glint to his pale blue eyes. She wondered if had wore colored contacts or if they were naturally that color. 

He cleared his throat and she realized she had been staring at him. “Besides,” he mumbled, scratching his jaw awkwardly. “This will help my job in the long-run. Anythin’ that makes me look more hideous… always a plus.”

“You’re not- you’re not hideous,” Marianne said without thinking. He blinked, blue eyes going wide and for a moment they just stared at each other as embarrassment made her face burn even redder than before. Well done Marianne, can’t keep a handle on your fists or your tongue tonight. 

He opened his mouth, to say what Marianne would never know because a nurse opened the wide double doors and called “Bog King?”

The man - Bog? - stiffened, finally breaking their eye-contact. “Right,” he muttered. He got to his feet - Marianne wondered again at how tall the man was - before looking at her again. “Your hands?”

She shook her head quickly. “They’ll be fine. I have first aid at home. Should I wait for you to-”

He shook his head in turn. “No, no. I’ll- my- uh, my mother is coming so-”

“Right,” she said, not sure what to do with said hands. “I’ll- I guess- I’m sorry, again.” 

“Don’t- don’t worry about it, Tough Girl,” Bog said. “I guess- I’ll probably not see ye, um, there. Again.”

“Probably wise. My, uhm, my sister is having a Halloween party. You should-”

“Last call for Bog King,” the nurse called again. 

He gave her a helpless look and she waved him off, abandoning her, frankly impulsive, train of thought. She didn’t have his number, he didn’t have hers. Dawn would say something about true love finding a way and that was enough to jolt Marianne out of those thoughts. He was a very… interesting person, even in their short conversation she had felt something, even if it was just comradery. And that’s all it had been. And that’s all she’d let it be. 

* * *

Two night’s later, Marianne hovered in a doorway of her sister’s Halloween party. They had cleared out the furniture and people were dancing to Time Warp. Dawn was glowing, dressed like a fairy princess. Marianne was dressed normally, except for a tiny witch’s hat pinned into her hair and black painted nails and lipstick.

She didn’t know most of the people, all Dawn’s friends and classmates. Her sister had always been the social butterfly. But she was comfortable in the silence. 

“Nice costume, Tough Girl,” a rough voice said behind her.

Marianne almost shrieked, nearly punching the man in the face for a second time as she whirled around. 

He wasn’t wearing the Haunted House make-up but he was still in the costume. The skin around his nose was still discolored but his large pointed nose didn’t look broken. His eyes glowed in the dim lights around them. 

Marianne stared, horrified. “How did you- when-?”

“Your sister stopped by yesterday,” he explained. his smile somewhere between smug and gentle. “Seemed to have the same idea you did, just more time to follow through with it.”

“You didn’t have to-”

“I know.”

Mariane cleared her throat. “Is your nose…?”

“Fine. And I told ye, I’m not upset.”

“Then why did you…”

Bog scratched his neck. “I- I don’t know…”

“Boggy! You’re here!” Dawn squealed from across the room, startling them both and reinserting that there were, in fact, other people in this room.

Bog rolled his eyes dramatically. “It’s Bog!” He called back. He looked back at Marianne. 

She found herself smiling, before she could help herself she was speaking. “Well this is probably a sucky way to make it up to you.”

“Yer not making it up to me, Tough Girl-”

She cut him off, with a wave of a bandaged hand. “So how about… dinner? Denny’s has a pretty sweet Halloween special.”

Bog blinked blue eyes before his startled expression became a particularly wicked smirk. “Now? Like, this minute?”

“This  _second_.”

Dawn winked when Marianne caught her eye. She blushed but stuck out her tongue. This was the beginning of something, maybe, a simple comradery. She wouldn’t over think it that night. 

But when Bog King smiled at her, as she shut the door behind them, Marianne had never been so grateful for punching a man in her face. 


	17. I Really Can't (Shouldn't) Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blizzards, bed sharing, and Bog's surprisingly a morning person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Context: Takes place in the same universe as my Thanksgiving AU... Essentially, Bog and Marianne have begun a roughly described ‘friends with benefits’ relationship. Neither claims to be interested in dating, but they’re pretty actively sleeping together.

There was never much ceremony when one of them left the other in the morning, or in the afternoon, or at night... or whenever it was they were finished with what they had come over for. A nod, half smile, occasionally the promise of a text later - neither of them were frequent texters - but nothing more.

And Marianne preferred it that way, honestly. Anything more would imply that there was more to this than what either of them were were willing to give to it.  _This_  wasn’t even a regular thing they did, just a sporadic now-and-then kind of deal. They’d never really set up what parameters went with their essential string of one night stands. Neither had really intended to have anything beyond the initial one, but here they were. Still, even without a layout of rules, she and Bog had fallen into this... not-really-relationship with relative ease.

 

It was about 10:30 PM and Bog King was dressing as she watched indulgently from her bed. There was a week until Christmas, and Dawn had been nagging her for days about inviting  _Boggy_  to the family Christmas dinner. Apparently, when her sister had wanted her to start going out more and seeing people getting into a perpetual hook-up with a bartender was not what she’d had in mind. What amused Marianne most about it was that Dawn was just as concerned about Bog’s feelings as hers.

“I’m just saying he really likes you - it’s totally obvious,” she’d told her earlier that day when the subject had come up yet again.

Marianne rolled her eyes. “Yes, and I like him, too, Dawn. I wouldn’t be banging the guy if he was a douche, no matter how good he is in bed.”

Her sister cringed at her frank language about their activities, which was half the reason she’d done it. “Mari, you’re missing the point. There’s  _got_  to be something more between you two, you’re just stomping on it before it can grow.”

Marianne had waved her off, pretending the words hadn’t stirred something in her, weird sense of something that was almost... lonely. 

A sense she was stamping down again now, as she watched Bog shrug on his leather jacket, sending a smirk over his shoulder at her and ruffling his already well-ruffled hair. She  _wasn’t_  lonely, not anymore. This... thing she had with Bog was fulfilling what need she had where that was concerned. Sure, there was no professions of undying love, no dates, no emotional complications. There was never any ceremony when he left her, when she left him...

So why was she suddenly expecting...  _more_?

Damn her sister’s words.

“Ye alright, Tough Girl?”

She blinked at his address, focusing on him again. He had his head cocked adorably, studying her with something like concern. “I’m- I’m good. Just lost in thought...”

Bog studied her for a moment then shrugged, a smirk pulling at his lips, which were red and a little swollen and Marianne stared at them a little longer than necessary. God, was it normal to still want him immediately after fucking him? That didn’t seem normal - even if she was still very new to the whole casual sex thing. 

“I guess- I mean, I should go, then,” he added, after they smiled at each other altogether too long.

“Right, yeah,” she said softly. Why was this so awkward all of a sudden? It wasn’t like they didn’t leave each other like this all the time. “Drive safe.”

He made an affirming sort of grumble, and nodded. “Sleep well, Mari.”

Marianne flushed inexplicably. “Y-you, too.”

Bog left with no more than that, and Marianne flopped on her back in bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering what the fuck was wrong with her. God in heaven knew didn’t want anything more from Bog, she didn’t want them to be anything more. She’d done the traditional relationship thing once and it had completely destroyed her to the point where she was lucky that it hadn’t tainted her ability to feel any kind of intimacy. 

Yes, what she and Bog had was already more than she had ever imagined herself having ever again. She wasn’t going to ruin it just because she was feeling weird tonight, her bed feeling suddenly too big-

The sounds of her door opening again startled her out of these thoughts. She sat upright once more. 

Then the familiar voice called, “Mari?”

Alarm faded to confusion. Bog. Maybe his truck needed a jump - the thing looked to be on its last legs, but apparently he’d had it for years. She pulled on an old Led Zeppelin tshirt that stopped at mid-thigh and came out of the bedroom. 

Her living room was lit only by the shoulder length Christmas tree that she often left on as a nightlight that time of year, but even in the little light Marianne could see Bog was shaking snow off of his jacket, hair, jeans, gloves... “It’s a bloody whiteout out there,” he growled.

Marianne blinked. “What, really?” She went to the window and pulled at the blinds to find a world of glittering flakes of snow, swirling with the wind so close together that she could barely make out the grey-and-rust truck in her drive, much less the street. The snow caught what street lights there were and turned the late night darkness almost white. 

“... Shit.” She mumbled. “It’s probably made roads a mess too.”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Bog pulled the word into something almost painful and when she looked at him the 6′5″ man was wringing his hands, looking almost small. 

Marianne cocked her head at him. “What?”

He fidgeted a moment longer, as if trying to find words. “Look...I- uh know we- we don’t- I wouldn’t ask to stay if it wasn’t that-”

Marianne cut him off, laughing. “What are you talking about, idiot? I’m not banishing you to the frozen tundra because we have a strict no- _actual_ -sleeping-together rule. Which, by the way, we don’t really - so...” They didn’t really have any strict rules, honestly. Just what had been implied when this begun. But while true, she hadn’t wanted to sleep with him in the honest sense of the term - it felt too much like a promise - she’d be willing to if-

Bog scratched at his neck. He looked cold. “I can sleep on the couch,” he blurted.

Her thoughts derailed immediately and she felt an uncomfortable twinge in her gut, her cheeks burning. God, she was thinking of this in terms of what  _she_  was comfortable with, what  _she_  was willing to do and not do... not about him...

 _He doesn’t want to sleep with you_.

God and what was wrong with that? That’s not what they did, that wasn’t what they were and if he wanted to crash on her couch because he couldn’t get out of her fucking driveway than who the fuck was she to expect anything else. To feel disappointed.

“Right,” she said, turning away from him and picking at her shirt. “If you’d rather- I’ll um- I’ll get you some pillows.”

Her words seemed to surprise him. “W-wait n-no I just- Ah wasn’t goin to push if ye- Ah thought ye would want- wouldn’t want... me, uhm there.” He kind of wheezed something that might have been a nervous laugh. 

Marianne stared at him a moment. He was going out of his way to keep from going too far, to overstep boundaries they’d never even set. It wasn’t about what he didn’t want, but what he did... Dawn’s words came back again.  _He really likes you_. 

She groaned loudly and Bog looked startled and no less on edge. She waved a hand against what looked like a building apology. “This is what we get for not setting up rules before we started this.” So much for ease...

But Bog’s smile became less of a wince, even if it remained rather bitter. “Aye.”

Marianne sighed, running her hand through messy hair. “Do you want couch or bed?” He opened his mouth and she waved him off. “I swear to god, I’m okay either way - you’ve been in my bed often enough that I honestly won’t mind... if you don’t.”

“I don’t,” he said immediately. “Mind, I mean. I don’t- ah- mind.”

She rolled her eyes and crooked a finger. “Come on, then. I have work in the morning.” 

His smile was relieved and his voice regained it’s usual gruff sarcasm. “Assuming you can get out of yer driveway tomorrow.”

Marianne groaned. “Oh, I better.” She began walking back to her bedroom, adding over her shoulder, “What about you?”

“Bar shift wouldn’t start until evening,” Bog said, following her. “Although when ye own a place yer hours aren’t always the same as the businesses. An’ I should probably make sure nothing was damaged in this goddamned blizzard soon as I can.”

“So early morning for us both,” Marianne said with a nod. “Bed,” she said, and plopped back onto the bed. Internally she was freaking out, just a little bit, about the intimacy she had on one hand not asked or prepared for, but on the other hand had all but jumped at the chance. He shouldn’t stay, she really shouldn’t want him to stay... 

She mentally shook herself.  _What did it even matter, Marianne?_  Literally sleeping together wasn’t the promise of anything any more than  _sleeping together_  in the colloquial sense was.  It didn’t mean anything that they were dating, it didn’t mean Marianne was signing her heart away. Sleep was sleep. And besides, Bog wouldn’t have _fit_  on her couch. 

Against the turmoil inside her, it was amusing to watch Bog hover by her bed as if unsure if he knew how to get in the damned thing - as if not half an hour ago he had been curled in it with her, her body flush against his, both of them coming down from mutual bliss, one of his large hands stoking an even rhythm up and down her spine...

She felt herself flush a little, although she didn’t know why. “You coming?” He stiffened and Marianne could imagine his blush even in the dark room. He took a step closer and she added. “Planning to sleep in your coat?” He spluttered, likely blushing more, and she laughed - amused at her skill at flustering the tall, imposing looking man. 

Bog finally suitably undressed, and Marianne scooted over to give him room; the queen bed was more than big enough for two people but Marianne typically found herself sleeping in the dead center. She wondered at how  _easy_ it felt returning to their earlier position, and at how that easiness left her  _un_ easy. This whole situation was nothing but contradictions.

She shifted a bit in the bed, and was distracted when her arm brushed his bare chest. She squeaked softly. “Christ, you’re freezing. Don’t you have any fucking circulation?”

He chuckled, the sound reverberating in his broad chest. “I’m cold blooded,” he offered.

“Is that the name of your 80′s hair rock cover band?”

He laughed louder, drawing his -  _fucking freezing_  - arms around her, pulling her close. Marianne’s gaiety died at the ease in which he did it, no hesitation in the act of holding her. In earlier escapades together it had come to light that neither of them had had a one night stand before and furthermore Bog had never done, well,  _anything_  before. Marianne had had sex with Roland a handful of times (though frankly in light of what she and Bog had been having she was loathe to even call that  _sex_ ), and though it had surprised her that she was more experienced than Bog was, it surprised her more at what a natural the man was _._ It wasn’t from experience that Bog knew how to hold her, it was simply an instinct. 

And damn her, it felt nice. 

They didn’t say anything for a few minutes, Marianne’s blinds were cracked just enough that she could still see the snow swirling outside, and at points the whole apartment seemed to creek with the wind. Her cold-blooded bed mate did warm up eventually, with her close at his side and... Marianne relaxed.

“Goodnight, Mr. King,” she murmured.

She felt him laugh more than she heard it. “Goodnight, Miss. Fairwood.”

* * *

 

Marianne woke once in the middle of the night, her shirt tangled up and Bog’s large cool hand resting at her bare back. Blearily, she looked at his face, marveling a little at how soft his angular features looked in sleep. He didn’t snore, but his even breaths were on the raspy side -  _smoker_ , she thought fondly. A glance out the window and she could see the colored christmas lights that decorated houses across the street in her complex. The snow had stopped, she noted, and nuzzled herself closer to him, smiling - warm, comfortable, happy...

 

* * *

 When she woke again to her phone’s alarm - 8 AM - the bed was empty. Marianne was once again in the dead center of the queen mattress and lay blinking at the ceiling wondering whether or not she had just had a very vivid dream. Had she just had the weirdest fantasy of snowstorms and Bog King sleeping at her side? Was she so lonely that her subconscious had made up the whole scenario?

Had he woke early and left her?

The sound of the floor creaking from out her bedroom door lifted the weight that had inexplicably settled in her stomach. Shrugging on a silk bathrobe, white with blue, purple, and pink butterflies - made by Dawn - and headed toward her kitchen.

Where Bog stood at her stove, still shirtless, making something that smelt like cinnamon and singing Blue Christmas to himself.

“What are you doing?” 

He cut off and turned to her, smiling. “Mornin’. Want french toast?”

Marianne blinked a few more times. The dream option was looking more and more likely. “French toast.”

Bog’s smile faltered slightly. “I did ask ye if I could use your kitchen - but ye might have been sleep talking...”

“Probably,” she agreed - she did not recall this - but she felt her own lips turn up almost of their own accord. “But it’s- it’s cool. French Toast, though?”

He flushed, though his grin returned. “Only thing ye had all the things for. Got a problem with it?”

“No, I just-”  _I just was not preparing for the sight of you being so damned domestic in my kitchen. I was not expecting her tall, dark lover to be a fucking_ morning  _person_. “You’re a bartender, not a chef.”

Bog laughed, and turned back to the stovetop. “I’m a lotta things, Tough Girl,” he said, flipping one toast into the air and catching it in the pan again with ease.  _Including a show off,_  Marianne thought. “What time do ye need me gone?”

 _Never_.

Flushing, she ran her hand through her mess of bed hair. “Ah, I work at nine thirty.”

“Ah’ll go check on the bar around nine then.”

Needing something to say, needing to focus on something other than the fact that seeing him casually use her kitchen, casually discuss work and life like he fucking lived there was making her heart race, she asked, “How are the roads?”

“Messy, but plowed,” Bog answered promptly. “We got almost a foot. Here.”

Without warning, Marianne’s hands were suddenly full of a warm plate of french toast, not over cooked or soggy. They looked like they came off of Dawn’s pinterest board. She stared at the plate then at Bog’s fucking  _expectant_  face.

“You played me,” she told him.

He blinked. “What?”

“You,” she repeated, freeing a hand to point at him accusingly. “You played me. All this time you’ve been seducing me by looking like some leather-clad, motorcycle riding, bar owning bad boy - and you’ve turned out to be a fucking  _nerd_.”

Bog blinked a few more times before breaking into a very toothy grin. “Those are fightin’ words, Tough Girl.”

“Then fight me.”

He laughed. “Ah don’t fight people before breakfast.”

She rolled her eyes, sitting at last. “I can’t believe you. You know, my breakfast is usually  _coffee_.”

Bog shook his head, joining her a minute later. “Christ. I need to cook for ye more often.”

Marianne nearly choked on her mouthful of toast at the image that presented. How on earth was that idea more alluring to her than anything else they did together? What kind of person had  _domestic_  fantasies about someone?

_A person in love._

She did choke that time.

“Are ye alright?” Bog asked immediately, blue eyes concerned.

It took her a few coughs and gulps of water to get herself under control, and even then her heart was pounding wildly, her thoughts swirling like the night’s blizzard unable to settle on one thought or feeling. She couldn’t be- she wasn’t- She liked Bog, liked him a lot... this relationship was already more than she had ever hoped for, more than she had allowed herself to hope for. She couldn’t ruin it. She wouldn’t.

“Marianne?”

She realized she hadn’t answered and quickly shook her head. “I’m- I’m good. Just fine.” She stared at her half eaten plate of french toast. It suddenly felt like too much. Having him there felt like too much. “Y-you know, I’m- going to take a shower and head in a bit early - in case traffic... you know...” 

She was shoving him out the door, and both of them knew it. Bog looked at her, the food he’d made for her, back towards the bed they’re shared that night, and back at her, his expression unreadable. “Right. That’s- a good- good idea, yes.”

Marianne’s heart gave an unhappy twist.  _He really likes you_ , Dawn’s voice reminded her. “Um. Don’t worry about dishes or anything... I’m good.”

“Right,” he repeated. “I’ll - I should go, I suppose.” 

He stood and something in her absolutely panicked. She was suddenly certain that if he left, left like he always did, with no ceremony, no promises... he’d never come back-

“Christmas dinner!”

He froze, halfway through the motion of going to get his clothes from her room. He turned. “What?”

“My family’s christmas dinner. You’re invited,” she said, her voice hoarse in its earnestness.

Bog looked at her, startled, before his face settled into a bitter half smile. “Ye don’t need to do tha’ to appease yer sister, Marianne.”

She flushed - but of course she had told him in the past how Dawn was hounding her about it. “I know that,” she told him, holding his eyes. “I know I don’t have to do anything for Dawn. But, the thing is- I mean, what I’m trying to say is,” she swallowed hard. “ _I_ would really like... if you were there.” 

This was apparently very much the right thing to say. Bog’s eyes went ride and he was almost slack jawed before a smile rose to his face, and a flush to his cheeks. Awkwardly, he put hand over his mouth, almost as though he were trying to smooth the smile back down, but it just wouldn’t go, his delight unable to be stamped out. “Yeah?”

Marianne felt her own smile come to her face, a weird feeling of release to all of the tension coiled inside her almost bringing tears to her eyes. “Yeah.” They smiled at each other, speechless for a few seconds before she hastily added. “I mean, only if you want to- to go.”

“ _I do_ ,” he said immediately, and blushed deeper. Marianne bit her lip, her smile giddy. Bog cleared his throat again. “Speakin of, I should- I should go, now, probably. Ye’ve got to- get ready, I know.”

Marianne considered it, but at this point what was the fucking point. There were invisible lines in this relationship that they weren’t supposed to have crossed and they’d gone and crossed them so blatantly it was like they didn’t matter. And Marianne was coming to realize maybe her sister was right, maybe those constraints had only been hurting what they both wanted, what made them both so utterly, speechlessly happy.  _Something more_.

“Well, maybe you can stay, a little longer, if you’d like.” Bog raised an eyebrow and she smiled, bashful. “It’s cold outside.” 


	18. Complication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marianne gets injured during Straight On and Bog has a protective instinct... even for his 'enemies'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A birthday gift for Humanityinahandbag

She had been steadily hacking away at his castle as they fought, and had the Bog King had any attention left outside of concentrating on not getting hacked to bits himself, and sheer awe that this tiny little fairy princess would be the one to do it, he might have realized the danger.

But he did not.

So he didn’t think at all when he finally was able to a swing of his staff, knocking into her stomach and forcing her to back, hitting the upper wall of his throne room. He spared a moment to wince at her collision - he could have pulled the force of the blow back, but honestly, until then she had been blocking him without flaw... honestly, until then _he_ had been the one blocking -

But then, there was a cracking sound, and a section of his wall splintered, then splintered off until half a dozen good sized chunks were beginning to crack away from their foundation, centering on the tiny fairy he had knocked into it. She was still against the wall, his blow had literally knocked her into the bark, and she struggled to pry herself away before she went down with the rest of the debris. Without thinking, Bog reached to grab her arm, to pull her loose to the same effect - but the movement came too late, and the section of his castle wall fell away, pulled to the throne room floor.

Her voice, previously a song an intimidation, a show of force and fight for dominance, was a shriek as she plummeted and Bog barreled down with her, trying to reach her before she hit the ground. He both succeeded and failed in this, he couldn’t catch the fast-falling fairy, but he did manage to use his staff to knock back some of the falling petrified bark - diverting where it fell or at least further breaking it into less harmful pieces. 

There was a loud “UMPH!” and a louder rumble as princess and rubble hit the castle floor, making the whole throne room tremble slightly. Bog could think about the long term repercussions of missing another part of his throne room later, something else was more pressing at his mind, wiping any other thought out in its panic.

She was hurt.

“Princess!” Now wasn’t the time to not know her name, he reflected absently, but there wasn’t time for that. He landed before her, as she slumped, semi-sitting amongst the wreckage. Her large purple wings were bent in strange positions, but from where he landed, they looked still intact. The fairy herself had closed her large eyes, her skin pale.

Then she moved, and he exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding. Only then did it occur to the Bog King to wonder why was he so concerned for her? This fairy had been trying to kill him mere seconds ago. This princess, her people had been the one to steal the love potion, breaking a - perhaps unspoken - rule between there kingdoms; isolation...

And sure, that battle had become boasting and taunting, invigorating and bordering on something that might be called fun... that didn’t mean she wasn’t the enemy. 

She shifted again, groaning as she struggled to sit up more and his reasoning flew from his mind as quickly as the words flew from his mouth; “Are ye hurt?”

Another groan. “Fine,” she grumbled tersely, although she sounded a little absent. She touched her forehead, wincing a little and pulling away with a bit of red staining her forehead - a small cut on her forehead. Adjusting, she moved to behind her head, speaking again. “If that’s all the bleeding I’m doing I’ll be fi-”

Her hand came back around. It was completely red.

“Damn it,” she said, but Bog barely heard her, staring at the blood on her hand, a strange ringing filling his ears. 

_Oh gods, she was hurt._

“Don’t look at me like that,” her snarl brought him back to attention. “I’m fine. Head wounds just bleed-  a lot. It can’t be- bad.”

He shook his head, crouching down before her. The princess’s eyes widened at his sudden proximity but Bog noticed there was no revulsion at being so close to him, simply surprise. Although perhaps that was the head injury talking. “Yer hurt,” he said inanely. Gods, this wasn’t at all what he wanted. On one hand, of course, it was dangerous to be hurting the fairy heir, tonight’s events were already straining the two kingdom’s relationship further than Bog would prefer, but had this been any worse it would be a kind of complication he knew they could never come back from.

But beyond any of that, Bog found he was simply loath to cause real pain to his fierce, wild creature who had been nothing like he had expected. Certainly it had been his desire to stop her attacks, and perhaps more selfishly to _best_ her, but never to injure her.

“Really observant,” she said, almost amused. She tried to move again and winced, her hand slipping, causing her to slump back against the sharp debris around her. Bog didn’t think before he grabbed her arms, and hauled her up, shifting to move one long arm around her. “Hey - _hey_! I don’t need to be coddled, your majesty. I told you, I just need- ugnn.” Her features contorted as if a spasm of pain went through her. 

Bog looked away from her, frantically looking for his staff. They weren’t necessarily competent but most of his more efficient subjects had gone to work hunting down both the Potion and those already Dusted. They’d do. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, they had appeared nearby and for once were smart enough not to ask if he _bloody needed help_. “Stuff! Thang! Get my mother-”

“Ah, I’m already here - get outta the way,” the stout goblin woman appeared with a good dozen of his subjects who must have come to investigate the noise. “Saw the whole thing an’ got what ya need right here.” She waved a bundle of rough gauze in her three-fingered hand.

Bog stared at it, and then at her. “Why were ye- oh, ne’ermind. Give it over,”  He held out the hand that wasn’t occupied holding the princess, and his mother handed it over with a _har-umph_.

“Impatient, aren’t we?” 

He would have rolled his eyes had he not been so tightly wound. “Given the circumstances.” Griselda snorted again and as he attempted at unwinding the gauze without jostling the fairy too much he could both hear and feel the motley collection of goblins moving closer, inspecting and questioning what had happened, what was happening, why was their king treating a fairy this way, was she going to live?

He closed his eyes with a long suffering sigh. “Would ye mind,” he said, in a slow building growl. “Givin ‘er  _SOME_ **_BLOODY SPACE_!?** ”

The goblins scampered, save Griselda who, in her usual manner, looked all the more pleased by his outburst. He blinked at her. She blinked black before seeming to catch on that she had been included. “Oh. Oh. Right. I’ll just- leave ya to it, sweetie! You two behave!”

“ _Mother_ ,” he groaned after her, feeling his face grow warm. “Ah’m- ah, Ah’m sorry.”

His opponent - his patient? his prisoner? his guest? - said, “For the mother part or the nearly-breaking-my-eardrum part?”

Bog glanced down at her, seeing the flicker of a smirk and feeling something like an echoing smile tug at his mouth. Gods, but she was a fiery wee thing - her sarcastic banter something he had never valued in another until experiencing it with her, as much a pleasant surprise as her skill with that sword of hers.. 

Past her smile, her face was still pale - paler than normal for a fairy -, and Bog reigned his thoughts back to the task at hand. “Ah need to stop the bleedin. This is treated with herbs preventin any kind of infection, but its gonna sting... a little.”

“Can’t hurt worse than it does now,” she said, her smile becoming a clenching of teeth, her eyes closing.

He snorted humorlessly. “Ye’d be surprised.”

In the end she ground her teeth and whimpered her pain as he did what he could, wrapping the gauze tightly around her head. Needing both hands, he finally settled her more comfortably against the ruin and used one hand to gently lift up her soft bangs. She opened her eyes and while they were clouded in part to pain and a serious head injury, there was some real confusion in them too. He ignored it valiantly, just as he ignored the way the gold glow of the chandeliers caught the gold specks in her eyes.

She was still watching him as he knotted the sliced the end of the gauze off with his claws, tying it behind her head. “What?” He said, more of a snarl than was perhaps necessary.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Is there somethin else I should be doin?” he asked.

Her breathing had been harsh and erratic as he had worked, but was evening now. Her voice was still slurred as she spoke. “I dunno. Lettin me bleed out. Gloating.”

He raised an eyebrow. “An’ why would I be gloating?”

“You won.”

“ _The wall_ won, ye wee tough girl. I’m not goin to gloat over a battle that I didn’t win under fair circumstances.” She snorted, but he saw the smile that turned at her lips. Her amber eyes closed again and, with a touch of panic, he continued. “As for lettin ye bleed out - out of the question. Ah don’t kill the innocent, an’ that extends to lettin them die on my watch.”

The princess nodded, and then winced again. Bog looked around the throne room again, trying to find a better place to put her. She was a wisp of a thing, he was certain he could fly while carrying her, but where would he take her? 

The princess placed her hand on his arm, completely derailing any and all of his thoughts. Bog stared at it, shocked by the deliberate, nonviolent touch. When he looked up, she was bracing herself on it, looking at him. “My sister?” She asked, seriously, her voice the clearest since the injury - her concern for her sister overpowering even her injury.

Bog thought back on the sleeping, love-dusted child in his dungeon. “She’s unhurt, and will remain so.” He cleared his throat and added. “Regardless of whether I receive the potion before moondoon or not.... she will remain so.” He mentally wondered at himself, at why he felt the need to say that (he hadn’t even considered the matter until the words left his mouth), at the way he was positively babbling. Gods help him, if her kingdom learned he went soft over injured little fairies... “Ah mean, uh- she’ll still stay _here_ until Ah get- well, ye know...”

His previous thoughts about this whole situation causing more complication returned to him and he shook his head. His concern didn’t change anything, didn’t change their relations. She was still _their_ princess, she was still an enemy. Bog would remember that. He would.

Still, she relaxed, the hand that rested on his arm squeezed gently. “Good. I’m not in a state to kill you for hurting her.” She attempt to sit up further again, and then brought her hand to her mouth with a wince. “Uhhgh. Oh _skies_ ,” she gasped, her voice muffled.

Fresh panic and concern - and more than a little guilt - settled unpleasantly in his gut. “Are ye- what is it?”

She took a few shaky breaths, removing her hand. “Nauseous,” she whimpered. She held the hand up, before he did or said anything. “I won’t throw up on you floor, your majesty, it’s enough of a mess already.”

“Ye- ah, ye can call me Bog,” he said unthinking.

The princess raised her eyes to his again, unfocused though they were the amber glow was unaffected and Bog felt his face grow oddly warm. “I’m Mari. _Marianne_ \- I’m Marianne,” she told him. 

“Marianne,” he repeated. She almost smiled again before she swallowed heavily, and her eyes closed. Bog made a decision. “Come on, tough girl. Ye can throw up somewhere more comfortable.”

“Oh and how am I getting there? Not exactly up to flying,” she said, a sardonic touch to her slurred voice. He shook his head, amused. 

Bog got to his feet, and stooped, pulling Marianne up in one smooth motion. As he’d expected she weighed nothing at all. One arm went under her knees, the other supported her just at the base of her wings. He went to grin, smug, at her, when he became aware of the sudden proximity he had put between them. Her startled brown eyes were so close to him, flickering over his features. Then, unexpectedly, her head fell sideways, resting between his neck and the sharp pawlrons that were his shoulders.

“Warn me before I move that suddenly,” she gasped, her breath warm on his neck. Heat curled through him and he was aware he had very much not thought this through. 

“Ah- Ah’m sorry.”

She lightly punched his chest, whether in further reprimand or to show him he was forgiven, he didn’t know. She only said, when he began to move, “Am I going to get a lovely tour of your dungeons?” 

He snorted. “Nae unless ye want yer head to hurt more.” The dungeons were already filling with other loved-dusted denizens and if they reacted anything like the younger princess, it meant there would be nothing but song for some time. 

“So considerate,” she murmured, she hadn’t lifted her head. “Bog?” 

“Aye?” He asked.

“We’re finishing that fight- later.”

Bog blinked, and, unable to help himself, grinned. “Aye, tough girl. We will.” 

And if he left his staff, and her sword, on the floor of the throne room. Well, they’d figure that out later.


	19. Call-in Requests pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've gotten a couple drabbles written from tumblr prompts in the last few weeks so I thought I'd compile them again

**One character adjusting the other's jewelry/neck tie/ etc.**

“I hate to say this, Mari, but you’re being a wee bit… contradictory,” Bog said, dryly. 

Marianne met Bog’s eyes in the mirror, where she was part-way through putting an earring in the third hole on her left ear. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh really?” He drawled, raising an eyebrow. “Let’s see, what were you saying earlier?  ‘It’s just a quick lunch with my dad, Bog. Nothing to worry about. We won’t even be there for an hour’?”

Marianne still held his gaze. “Yeah,” she said. “What’s your point?”

“My point is, for all yer reassuring, Tough Girl, _yer_ the one who has spent the last _hour_ fretting, and not I.”

She turned to him, stiffening. “I am not fretting!”

“Ye’ve changed _four times_ , Marianne.” Bog said. “And I think bein late to this is worse than whatever was wrong with yer first three outfits.”

Marianne flexed her hands, so she didn’t pick at the latest outfit; a black tunic-blouse, high necked with iridescent buttons at the collar and cuffs. It was nice by her wardrobe’s standards, and paired with maroon tights and low black boots, it still maintained her color palate and vaguely punk aesthetic. The latter she maintained by keeping in her piercings, for all that her father hated them.

Bog was dressed what was likely nice for his wardrobe as well. A button-up shirt in deep forest green and dark, clean cut blue jeans. He leaned in her bedroom doorframe, looking far too comfortable for a man who was about to meet his lover’s father for the first time. Or maybe he had a point and she was freaking out - she had never had an outside opinion on this matter.

She sighed, a frustrated sound, and looked back at the mirror, grabbing the last earring. “It’s not you, you know.”

“What?”

“You’re not why I’m… fretting. Like, I don’t give a rat’s ass if dad likes you or not - and frankly I’m not worried about you making a good impression.”

She wasn’t looking at him, but she could hear him shift and could tell he was relaxing. “Then-”

“I moved out when I turned eighteen,” she answered his unfinished question. “I didn’t have a job, I crashed on a couple people’s couches until I settled myself. Now, dad and I have reconciled, obviously, and have for years, but there’s a part of me that subconsciously kinda tells me I have to look… put together. I have to let him know I’m doing good, you know?”

When he was silent, she turned to face him again. His blue eyes took in her outfit with a new understanding and he left the doorway to come to her. Bringing his hand up to the collar of her blouse, he dipped under it to brush along the hollow of her throat, catching on the chain of a necklace she had put on earlier - a thin gold chain with a gold magnolia flower at it’s base. He lifted it out so that it lay smoothly against the black of her top. 

He studied it for a moment and then smiled, meeting her eyes. 

“There. You’re perfect.”

* * *

**“You heard me. Take. It. Off.”**

Marianne crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow - hoping confidant posture would erase the feeling of acute embarrassment she felt. “Excuse me?”

Her- well, _Bog_ (aside from a guy she’d slept with a few times, he wasn’t really _her_ anything… yet) was unfazed. “You heard me. Take. It. Off.”

Yeah, that’s what she heard the first time. “Look I- I am all for experimenting, Mr. King,” she tried not to stammer. “But I think public nudity is, I don’t know, illegal.”

He rolled his eyes, but Marianne noted a slight blush and she felt better for it - usually he was the easily flustered one. “That’s not what I- just- go inside first.”

Marianne blinked, then frowned. “So… you’re telling me to _change_?”

“Yes.”

“What’s wrong with what I have on?” She said, dropping her arms to look down at what she wore; a black romper with purple floral print. She quite liked it, personally.

He looked her over in a way that was, for once, not at all sexual in nature. “Mari, yer gonna be on a _motorcycle_. Yer legs are gonna get bloody torn up in that, wind alone - not to mention loose gravel. Ah’m not lettin’ ye make that mistake.” 

She looked at the long expanse of bare leg, and pouted a little. She knew Bog liked her legs, and she liked making him a blushy incoherent mess by exploiting that. But… she winced, thinking about the promise of road-rash. He had a point.

“Alright fine. I’ll be out in a minute - or should I run my outfit by you first and make sure it’s suitable?” She teased.

Bog grinned, leaning back on his bike. “Wear those leather pants of yers - ye’ll be grand.”

* * *

**Accidentally falling asleep together**

They had spent the afternoon sparring outdoors, never mind the muggy heat that made the air seem especially thick. Unsurprisingly, given that heat, they fought to a standstill, and apparently deciding she was too exhausted to stand, Marianne flopped onto the mossy ground.

Bog leaned on his staff, weary and sore in a content sort of way, and grinned down at her sprawling figure. Marianne always had a kind of glow about her after they sparred. A mix of exhaustion and exhilaration that suited her extremely well, with her skin flushed a rosy hue, and her dark hair damp across her forehead. 

Though she had her eyes closed, her dark makeup smudged slightly, she sensed his eyes on her and a corner of her mouth turned up. Lifting a weary arm, she crooked her finger at him. “Come. Lay with me, Bog King, and we shall commiserate our draw.”

Bog snorted at her lofty tone. “I would have said you won,” he said, sitting beside her.

“I don’t take pity wins, your majesty. You’re not laying.”

“I’m good, thanks,” he said dryly. Then yelped as she grabbed his wrist and tugged him down. He landed awkwardly on his shoulder, groaning. “Gods, Tough Girl, yer gonna kill me - we’re done sparrin’ remember?”

She laughed. “I’m a sore loser, what can I say?”

“I thought it was a draw.” He would have said more, but she rolled on her side to face him and he was suddenly struck by how close they were. Her eyes, even in the muted green light that washed over all the forest that time of day, were they’re beautiful golden color. They wrinkled a little at the corners when she laughed at his remark. 

Bog would never get over how beautiful she was.

With a sigh, he shifted into a more comfortable position on the forest floor, aware that it was, in fact, considerably more pleasant than standing had been. “Damn,” he muttered, letting his head fall back. “I don’t think I’m gonna be able to get back up.” 

Marianne nestled closer to him, until her head could rest on his chest. Instinctively, he brought an arm around her. “Me neither. I didn’t realize how tired I was until I lay down.” She yawned - it probably wasn’t as adorable as he found it.

Bog said nothing, bringing his other hand up to touch her hair, finding that holding her was even more pleasant than lying down. He stared at the canopy of leaves and ferns overhead, shielding them as much from sunlight as from potential threats, and didn’t even feel his eyes shut.

Next to him, Marianne spoke, her voice quiet and almost hazy. “Bog?”

He didn’t open his eyes. “Mmm?”

“You really think I won today?”

He had to smile. She would press that. “Fair an’ square, Tough Girl.”

She made a pleased sounding hum and snuggled further against him.

~*~*~*~

Bog woke to someone shaking his arm, none-to-gently. Groggily he lifted his head. “Mari-? Ah’m sorry- I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep.”

Marianne slowly came into focus; sitting up, her hair in an impressive disarray. “Don’t worry, I was asleep to- that’s not- I just-”

Slowly, Bog became more aware of the mannerisms he knew well; something was upsetting her. He lifted himself up on his elbows. “Marianne- what’s wrong, love?”

“I just-” she took a deep breath. “I think I heard thunder.”

Ah. Bog had noticed it was darker outside than it had been before. Of course being caught outside in a thunderstorm wouldn’t be good, but on top of that, Marianne was terrified of thunderstorms. 

He listened, but didn’t hear anything. Still, it was better to be safe, better to keep her safe, comforted. Bog got to his feet, helping her to hers. Immediately, he picked her up. She could have flown herself, but she didn’t protest the action. Being close to him calmed her as much as being close to her relaxed him. He smiled at her briefly, before taking off for the castle, intent on beating the rain… and hopefully continuing their nap in more sheltered surroundings.

* * *

**Sharing a dessert**

The summer elf festival was one of the few social events in the Fields that Roland hadn’t completely ruined for Marianne. Mostly this was because he had never been to one. For all that they belonged to the Fairy Kingdom, elves and fairies rarely intersected. For every event there was a fairy ball, there would be an elf festival several days later. They would be the same night, except for the fact that the royal family had to be in attendance at both - the only fairies to be seen at any elf gathering. 

For reasons Marianne had yet to work out, Sunny also came to fairy balls. She had a feeling Dawn pulled some royal strings early into their friendship.

In any case, Roland was a captain but not a member of her family’s personal guard, so he’d never had reason to appear at an elf event. She had asked him, once, to accompany her to the summer festival, thinking it would be nice to spend the evening with the man she loved, but he had declined. Only later would it occur to her that he thought he was too good for them. 

Which turned out to be good in the end, because it meant she had one more part of her life free from his memory. 

Though, his memory did explain why she held her breath when she invited the Bog King to the same event.

And why she felt her heart leap when he agreed - though not without some initial bewilderment.

It was understandable, she thought, watching him side-long as he padded beside her, navigating the thoroughfares that made up the largest elf festival of the year. He was gigantic. Already fairies towered over elves, and Bog towered over her. 

He caught her eye and looked at her, a bitter turn to his lips. “I’m a little worried I’ll step on one.”

He was teasing her; it instantly made her feel better, even as she slapped his arm. “Bog!”

For the elves part, they took the presence of the king who had crashed their last major party with good grace. Many had been there when the two had confessed their love - they knew Bog meant well, the grouchy, dramatic, thunderous ruler though he was.

He was holding her hand; it was hard not to see he was a closet romantic.

“Gods,” he cursed softly, diverting her attention. “What is that?”

“What is what?”

“That,” he gestured with his free hand to a food stand not far from where they stood. “It looks like something bloody Sugar Plum would make.”

Marianne followed his hand, and almost laughed when she realized what he was looking at. Candy floss. Gobs of it, twisted around sticks and given to elves young and old to snack on while they wandered the festival grounds. Candy floss was an elf-made treat, but the running joke among those in the village was to call it ‘Fairy food’. Marianne and Dawn did everything they could to indulge this rumor and humor the smaller children of the village.

She looked back at Bog who was still staring at the mass of sugar, a pale pink color, in something like fascination and horror. She grinned. “It’s fairy food,” she told him solemnly.

“Fairy food,” he repeated.

“Ohh yes,” she said, nodding. “It’s spun sugar. We practically live on the stuff.”

He looked at her, a leafy brow raised. “Ye know the worst part, is that Ah could actually believe that.”

Her poker face broke and she laughed. “Really, though - you should try some.”

“Ah’m pretty sure it would kill me, Tough Girl.”

“Oh please. Like you’d ever die of something so undignified.” Without another word, she pulled her hand from his and went to the stall, picking up one of the larger sticks, with a nod to Bog.

The elf woman running it actually laughed, and was still laughing when she returned to her lover. 

“It’s on me,” she said sweetly, batting her eyes and leaning toward him expectantly. 

Bog eyed the dessert with an expression that had Marianne thinking he really did believe it might kill him. Then, with uncharacteristic care, he bit into a chunk of the sugary substance. 

A second later he coughed, pulling away from it as though it had bitten him. “It- that- augh- that is the strangest consistency I’ve ever put in my mouth,” he groused. “It’s supposed t’be soft?”

“It melts,” she said, smothering a laugh in her hand. “It’s sugar, you know.”

“Ah don’t have that much experience with sugar,” he replied, still pulling faces like he wasn’t sure what to make of the entire experience. 

Marianne’s laughter increased when she realized an entire glob of the floss was stuck on one of the briars that served him as stubble. When he gave her an inquisitive look, she plucked the spun sugar off of his chin, and popped it into her mouth.

“That was hardly sanitary.”

She rolled her eyes, plucking the stick from his hand. “No less than kissing you,” she replied, taking a bite.

He groaned. “Gods, yer gonna taste like that all night, aren’t ye?”

“We’ll have to find out.”

* * *

  
**One character adjusting the other's jewelry/neck tie/ etc.** (again!)

Bog tried not to think about the fact that Marianne had given him keys to her apartment, as he used said keys to let himself into said apartment.

(Tried not to think about it because thinking about it led his mind down roads he told himself he wouldn’t go on when he began his relationship with her. Long term roads. Long term roads they had both sworn off. Long term roads that began with a word starting with ‘L’.)

Besides, it was hardly like they were living together. He just was in the habit of spending some odd nights in her bed, or coming when she needed something. The latter of which was what had him entering the small, cluttered apartment. 

“Bog, babe - that you?”

The last person to call him ‘babe’ was a waitress at a Waffle House who still wore her hair in a beehive. But Bog found himself grinning at the address all the same. “Yeah.”

Her voice echoed down the narrow hall. “I’m in the bedroom. Can you come here?”

“Yeah,” he repeated, already halfway there, speaking as he opened the door. “What do you - woah!”

Marianne laughed, over her shoulder. “Please - it’s like you haven’t seen me naked before!”

Marianne was not, in fact, naked. But her entire back was currently bared to him, a black dress on but unzipped. At least, Bog assumed it was a dress; she was wearing sheer purple tights, ripped in several places, but she wore leggings and tights as pants pretty regularly.

“Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Help zip me up.”

Immediately, Bog did as commanded. Not before taking a moment to appreciate the expanse of creamy skin as it disappeared behind - very thin - black material. “Did you call me over to help you get your dress on?” He asked dryly. 

“Oh, because you’re so used me calling you to help me take it off.” He shoved her lightly and she laughed, turning around. “No that’s not why I called you, but thanks. Here, tell me how hideous I am!”

She put her hands on her hips, legs apart like Peter Pan, inviting him to look over the entire outfit. The black dress was probably a dress, though incredibly short, and fit her petite figure like a glove. Purple sequins moved in lines of various height up from the hem. It looked exactly like the kind of dress Marianne would pick out to go clubbing.

Except Marianne hated clubs.

He’d question that later. Currently, he was trying very, very hard not to get turned on by his not-really-girllfriend in an incredibly sexy dress. 

“Did ye call me over to tell ye how hideous ye are, Marianne, because I’m afraid I’ll only disappoint ye, there.”

Bog knew he had done a very poor job in hiding how she affected him because she blushed one of her rare blushes and looked away. “Shut up. This dress is the worst. I can’t believe it still fits.” Catching his inquisitive look she said, “I wore it for my 21st birthday. Like forever ago.”

“You’re 24, Marianne. 21 was nae forever ago,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Why are ye wearin’ it, anyways? And - not that I don’t love yer company an’ all, but why did ye call me?”

She clapped her hands together. “Well, speaking of 21s… you’ll never guess who hit the big one yesterday!”

Bog blinked. “No.” Marianne nodded. “No, Dawn? Really? Ah thought- honestly Ah thought she was younger.”

“Never tell her that.”

“Believe me I won’t,” he said solemnly. “So… you’re taking her out. Why dress like that though?”

Marianne sighed. “Because Dawn is going to be dressed like this, and if I’m not suitably dressed, too, she’ll try and ditch me as soon as she can. I love the girl but she is very particular about her image.”

“So, yer dressin’ to her standards so ye can keep a better eye on her?” Bog clarified. He shook his head. “Lord have mercy on the first man to hurt her. Speakin’ of - what about Sunny?”

“Some family thing - he’s out of town. He’s promised to make it up to her with drinks when he gets back, but Dawn’s not going to postpone her clubbing experience until then. Which… brings me to why I called you.”

Bog blinked at her, confused by the non sequitur until it hit him. “You- you want- me-?”

She clasped her hands together. “Please, Bog. Please, please, pleaseee come with us.”

“I would stick out like a sore thumb in that crowd, Tough Girl.”

“God, I know, but you’re also the one person I know who could legitimately beat up a guy for trying to hit up my no-doubt completely wasted sister.”

“That’s flattering, Marianne. I’m glad I’m suitably terrifying for you.”

“That’s not what I- you know I could kick any man’s ass if I needed to I’d just-” she sighed, dropping both her hands and her gaze. “Look, Bog, I’d just… I’d feel better if you were there.” She glanced up at him through her lashes. “Not just because Dawn. I’d also like- I mean, if I have to be there it’d be nice to be there with you.”

Bog all but ground his teeth, feeling as if he’d digested a swarm of butterflies. God, but it was hard to say no when she was so earnest, when Bog had never known anyone who wanted his company the way she did… It was strange and new, but pleasant, and he never wanted to lose it.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I’m not dancing, though.”

Marianne’s face lit up in a grin that was more stunning than anything she wore. “No dancing. Deal.”

 


	20. Take Me Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marianne wakes up in a stranger’s house with no memory of the night before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: while there is nothing sexually explicit in this fic, or even implied (not even ‘off screen’), there are descriptions of date rape drugs/being drugged, and frank discussion about it.

Based off of [this prompt](http://dainesanddaffodils.tumblr.com/post/149201177195/suzie-guru-otpprompts-person-a-and-person-b), though I twisted it quite a bit.

* * *

To say Marianne woke up would be a bit of an overstatement for the actual action. It was more like Marianne was slowly, slowly floating upward through a molasses-thick substance toward the surface of consciousness. 

She didn’t remember when or how she became unconscious, though she was working out some kind of process of elimination. Her mouth tasted terrible, her head was hammering in pain, her tongue felt heavy and thick, and even with her eyes still closed the room spun. It was all the symptoms of being extremely, extremely drunk or hungover, so had she been at a bar the night before? That made sense; Marianne went to bars pretty frequently. But she hadn’t gotten blackout drunk since- since ever, she thought. But maybe she had and just didn’t remember it?  

She wanted to rub her head, ease some of the ache, but her arms didn’t feel like cooperating, seeming also too heavy to move. Whining a little with pain, Marianne lifted her head wherever it was reclined and opened her eyes.

At first the bright light of the room sent pain lacing through her head like a hundred needles. She groaned again, but tried to make sense of what she saw. Her vision, like the rest of her it seemed, wasn’t going to be much help. Everything still spun, and looked kind of blurry. She had perfect eyesight so it wasn’t like she was missing contacts, but it sure felt like she was. 

What she could make out of the room she was in was that it was completely unfamiliar. Had a stranger taken her drunk ass home? 

Had she been raped?

Marianne vaguely dismissed the idea, feeling like she would know by now - that other parts of her body would have sent her signals now that they had been violated. _But_ , most of her still just felt fuzzy and indistinct, like her body didn’t belong to her and she was controlling it from an outside command center. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, and worse than any hangover she had ever experienced.

It didn’t help that the longer she tried to think, the harder it was for her to remember what happened the night before. She didn’t even remember going to a bar. Able to move her head without much resistance, she took stock of her reclining form, able to see better close up: she was on a couch, a large suede one, with one of those fuzzy throw blankets, half on her and half on the floor. 

Under the blanket she could see with relief that she was dressed, and nothing looked ripped or hastily pulled back on. She was in blue jeans and a dark purple blouse. Nothing fancy, nothing she wouldn’t have worn to a bar - assuming there was a bar. 

And where was Dawn? She’d gone to bars alone before, she thought, but that was rare. If she had gotten drunk someone should have called her - she should have called her. Why hadn’t she?

Steps came from another room, and Marianne’s mind still moved to slow to consider feigning sleep. A tall man - Marianne _could_ tell it was a man, though vision wasn’t giving her much more than that - came in a moment later, running his fingers through damp hair like he had just showered. He stopped dead when he saw that she had woken up.

“Ah- hello.”

She waited for him to be familiar, it didn’t happen. She waited for that to scare her, but that didn’t happen either. Like her memory, and her vision, her emotions felt like they were in a fog, unable to be reached in her current state. 

“If you were thinkin bout rapin me, your window of opportunity is closin real quick.” Contrary to her own boast, Marianne knew she was only about sixty percent coherent - hence why she made such a _fucking stupid_ comment to her potential rapist - and her thick, slurred voice surely would let him know that. 

The man still looked startled, but wasn’t alarmed. If anything her comment confused him, cocking his head. He was too far away so she couldn’t make out his face. That would make filing the police report difficult later. Assuming that was necessary.

“So whas the problem?” She asked when he didn’t respond. “Did you gemme home and realize I’m nahreally very hot when ’m not in darkass bars because truss me I learned that about myself a looong time ago.”

After another long silence, the man finally spoke. “Ye- Ye don’t remember me?”

Oh god, had she really let some stranger she met at a bar take her home with him? She felt as bad for her apparent lack of self-control as for letting him down by blacking out on his couch and not remembering him.

At least he - probably? hopefully? - hadn’t fucked her. Maybe for the first time in her life, Marianne had found a man with human decency.

“Ffraid not, pal,” she said. “Don’take it personally, rememberin isn’ really a thing for me righ now.”

The following pause was much shorter. “Fuck,” he said. “I should have thought of that. Er- how much do ye remember?”

Did he have an accent or was her hearing as fucked up as her sight right then? “Absoluly nothin,” she said promptly. Then, “I mean, in the past, like, twelve hours. I remember who I am an all tha’.”

“Fuck,” he said again, softer, more to himself. He scratched the back of his neck. “Well, ah- don’t worry. Yer safe here. I didn’t know where else to take ye, but I didn’t - I’m a friend.” He ran a hand through his hair again, seemingly in frustration, before changing the subject. “How are ye feelin?”

She took the change, still unsure what to make of him being a _friend_. Marianne didn’t really have friends. “Like hell, thanks for asking.”

He made a noise that might have been a choke or a laugh, or maybe both. “Right, should have thought of that, too. I can get ye water. I- I don’t think ye should stand yet.”

“Did I really drink that much?”

The man stilled. Then, with clear bitterness in his voice he said. “No.” And then, “I’ll be right back.”

He left, to get her water she supposed, and left her to mull over that. So she hadn’t been blackout drunk? But she had blacked out, blacked out with no memory of the previous night. Was she concussed? But why would he take her home and not to a hospital? And she may have never had a concussion but she was sure her symptoms matched better with a really awful hangover. She had to have had something the night before.

Or had something given to her. 

The man returned, water in one hand, and Marianne frowned, the first real feeling of concern for her predicament surfacing. “Did you drug me?” She demanded, using a tremendous amount of force and dexterity to push herself onto her elbows.

He froze, halfway across the room to her. She expected a straight denial, but he sighed. “ _I_ didn’t.”

The emphasis wasn’t lost on her. “But someone did.” He looked away. “Look, bro, wouldn’it be a whole lot easier on us both if you juss told me what happened last night?”

He sighed again, and resumed his trek across the living room. “Ah was hopin ye’d remember it on yer own. I don’t want you to think that I’m makin up a story.”

“Is it that unbelievable?”

“Parts of it,” he said dryly. 

 _He wanted her to remember him_ , Marianne thought suddenly. Not just the night and how she got there, but _him_ , personally. That didn’t seem like something a date rapist would want. Especially not one who would drug a girl just to get her home.

He came just close enough to hand her a glass of water. Further pushing her up to sitting position, she accepted it and gulped down half the glass. Her mouth still tasted like something died in it but it a little less like it was growing mold. She looked up at him, ready to offer begrudging thanks, when she got her first  good look at his face: sharp features, ashy brown hair, and blue, blue eyes. 

_The blue-eyed man beside her at the bar held out a large, calloused hand, a warm smirk curving at full lips._

“We were at a bar,” she said.

His eyebrows shot up, but after a moment he gave a shaky nod. 

She narrowed her eyes. “But you didn’t drug me?” She asked again.

“No,” his voice rang a little sharp but it wasn’t an angry, offended denial. It was a fact. 

Maybe it was the remnants of the drug still clouding her mind, but Marianne made the decision to trust him.

She sighed, taking another sip of the water, trying to put together more pieces from her brief memory. “Can you at least tell me your name?” She asked at last. “Might help.”

He sat on the arm of the couch opposite her head. “Bog King,” he answered.

_“Bog King?” She echoed, eyebrows raised, a grin pulling at her own mouth almost against her will. She took his offered hand._

_“Got a problem with what I call myself, Tough Girl?”_

_The bar was dimly lit and smokey, the man beside her fitting in in a way Marianne had always wanted to fit in places like this. Naturally. Without looking like a spoiled princess playing the rebellious teenager. Never mind that she had just passed twenty-four._

_The music was mostly speaker feedback and drown out by conversations, and she had enjoying just soaking in the atmosphere and feeling like maybe she could be a part of it._

_“Not at all,” she teased. “I’m actually surprised at how well it suits you.”  
_

_His cheeks flushed. “Yer a bloody flirt.”_

_“Says the man giving me pet names and still holding my hand.”  
_

_Bog dropped the hand like it had burned him and Marianne laughed._

“Right,” she said presently, more to herself. “Okay.”

“Do ye remember me?” He - Bog King - asked.

She remembered _flirting_ , though she was hesitant to tell him that. She didn’t know why; clearly he remembered it. “Why were you there?”

“I’m tempted to ask ye why anyone goes to a bar,” he said, the first time real humor came into his voice. Now she could really hear the man she’d met the night before in him. “But actually I was there because I work there.”

“You were on the clock?” She asked, startled.

He shook his head. “No, I had just finished my shift. I was actually about to leave when I ran into you.”

And she’d kept him around, talking to her, laughing. _I’m a friend_ , he said. In the space of a night, she’d left that impression on him. Marianne never left that kind of impression on people. 

“Wish I could remember what I said,” she said softly. “Must have been pretty smooth.”

Bog said nothing, but he was smiling. 

She shook her head. The last thing she needed was to be getting further dazed by a man who was still practically a stranger, when she had woke up in his house after apparently being roofied.

“Why didn’t you call anyone? I had my phone, didn’t I?”

His smile vanished. “You did - it’s charging in the kitchen, in case you get a call. Your _In Case of Emergency_ number didn’t answer. Her voicemail said something about out of the country…”

Fuck. Dawn was taking a semester in England. She had completely forgotten that. 

Marianne’s Junior year of college, Dawn had begun her Freshman year at the same place and they had gotten an apartment together. Once Marianne graduated, she knew she couldn’t leave her baby sister to fend for herself for another two or more years. So, she got a job while Dawn continued classes. Only now, Dawn was in England and Marianne realized living alone didn’t suit her prickly personality as much as she had hoped.

Marianne wasn’t sure what possessed her to go to a bar alone, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Dawn was an ocean away, Sunny didn’t drink, and she didn’t feel like calling up anyone in her - admittedly small - pool of friends. 

She also didn’t know why she chose a bar far from her apartment. She wasn’t planning to drink a lot so driving wasn’t the problem, and maybe the bars around her were so full of the college crowd she had happily put behind her. A place called The Dark Forest Public House certainly was more her crowd. 

So now she remembered Bog, and she remembered the bar itself. She remembered why she was there, but from meeting Bog onward, things were still a blur.

Bog didn’t interrupt her thoughts; as he had said before, he wanted her memory of the previous night to return without his prompting, or filling in. He wanted to make sure she could trust her own perception, and not rely on anyone else, even him. It was frustrating, but she understood.

“What about the police?” She asked, at last. “Did someone call them? Or is the guy who did this still out there?”

“I didn’t, but one of our regulars is on the PD out here, and he called it in.” Bog shook his head with a rueful amusement. “I haven’t checked to see whether he was caught and taken in, but trust me, at the rate he was hobbling out, he couldn’t have gone far.”

“Hobbling? What, did someone break his kneecaps or something - can I thank them?”

“Thank yourself, Tough Girl.”

Marianne blinked. “I took out a guy while drugged?” Bog said nothing, pinching his lips together. She sighed. “Bog, please. Just give me something else to go from here? I’ll remember eventually either way.”

Bog made a sound like a growl but conceded a little more. “Ye ran him off before anyone realized he’d put somethin in yer drink. Before ye even drank from it.”

“Oh.” She said. 

_“I think I heard a bone crunch on that last kick,” Bog said, his expression clearly impressed.  
_

_Marianne snarled, still a little too shook up to appreciate the awe in his eyes. “Yeah well that bastard deserved it.”_

_“No doubt.” Bog said with a nod. “That and worse.”_

_She gave a bitter smile. “I see he made such a lovely impression on you.” She finally took a swig of the drink she had bought earlier in the night. To be fair, she’d been pretty distracted._

_“Is there any other impression you could get?”  
_

_“Unfortunately, the other is more common. I almost married him-”  
_

“Roland,” Marianne breathed, the remembered conversation jolted her back to the present like she’d been slapped. 

Bog let out a breath, like he had been holding it for hours. Like he had been waiting. “Aye.”

“Oh god. Roland.” Just saying his name was the strongest memory jog imaginable. It was like the one puzzle piece that suddenly gave the abstract design meaning. The whole night came back.

* * *

Marianne had thought it would be a good idea to go to a bar alone, and outwardly it was. The music was fun and loud, the people were friendly - and loud - and it was such a welcome change from the places Dawn took her drinking. 

She loved the place, loved disappearing into a crowd, but being alone in a crowded place was the same as being alone in her apartment. Alone. 

She bought a beer but had barely touched it, and was trying to think of what to do with it while she went and used a bathroom. She knew better than to leave her drink alone in a bar, and asking someone to watch it would be even worse. Maybe she could pass it off to some drunk with her blessing. She could always buy another when she came back.

That decided, she got up off of the high stool at the bar, beer in hand, only to stumble on the uneven step up from the bar and the rest of the pub’s main floor. Holding out a hand for balance she suddenly found it - and, a second later, all of her weight - pressed against someone’s chest.

Flushing a mortified red, Marianne looked the long way up into that someone’s face, shadowed by the lights above them.

“Oh.”

The tall man eyed her beer. “Ye should probably cut yerself off,” he said with dry amusement.

Further embarrassed, Marianne shoved herself away from him. “Excuse you, this is my first beer of the night.” A thought occurred to her. “You want it?”

His brow furrowed in confusion. “Wh- I didn’t actually mean-”

She shook her head. “No, I have to use the bathroom anyways and can’t really leave it. Knock yourself out - I’ve taken like half a swig, I promise.”

“Ye shouldn’t waste it on me,” he said.

Marianne had to laugh. “This isn’t a waste - I could have just dumped it out somewhere.” When he still looked unconvinced she grinned. “Why don’t you buy me one when I get back and we call ourselves square?”

His eyes went wide, but after a moment, he grinned back, crooked. Wicked. She was suddenly very glad she made the impulsive offer. “Sounds like a deal to me.”

She shoved the beer into his hand and left him at the bar. 

He did indeed buy her another one when she returned. The same one in fact, though not before he ran over the drink list with her like he owned the place. She finally asked him what he recommended, since he clearly knew it so well, and laughed when she got the same beer as before. 

She learned his name was Bog King, which suited him enormously. He’d known her all of a minute before she’d left him with her beer but in that time it appeared he had coined the name Tough Girl for her, and wouldn’t drop it.

“My name is Marianne,” she told him once in their conversation, only half-scolding. 

“And it’s a lovely name, Tough Girl,” he replied, the cheeky bastard. 

His name suited him the same way he suited this bar. His voice was as smokey as the air around them, his clothing in dark, muted earth tones - including an incredibly old but comfortable looking leather bomber jacket that Marianne went to embarrassing lengths in their conversation to touch.

They made jokes about the music, quizzed each other on classic music and movies. Bog talked about a recent trip to see extended family in Scotland, Marianne told him about her desire to find a good place to learn self-defense, and martial arts, and fencing, and- 

“At the same time?” Bog asked laughing. Marianne made a face at him.

“No, not at the same time. I want to pace myself after all.”

His smile was warm. “If I ever find a place - for any of those - I’ll let ye know. I mean, if ye’d like.”

She grinned back. “I’d like that very much.”

She’d like him to call, she thought, for any reason. She’d like to see him again. It was cliche and so completely unlike her, but Marianne had never felt such an immediate connection to someone. She didn’t want it to end when she left the bar that night. 

Bog and Marianne finished exchanging phone numbers, and Bog downed the rest of his beer. Marianne realized suddenly that she had barely taken half a sip of hers since she began talking to him. 

Patting his jacket, he cursed softly. “Damn, I think I forgot my keys in the back.”

Marianne paused stopped midway from taking another swig. “You’re leaving?”

Bog blinked, surprised, and Marianne felt her face grow hot. “Not yet, Tough Girl, but I’m gonna have to eventually.” His smile was crooked and she burned redder than before. “I’ll be right back.”

She nodded and let him go, putting her hands on her burning cheeks. It was one thing to think he was interesting and to connect with him. It was another to start harboring what might be a fucking crush on a man she barely knew.

Oh boy, when Dawn heard about this she was going to be thrilled.

She was mulling over how that conversation would wind up going when she heard a sickeningly familiar voice say, “Marianne! Darlin’!”

Slowly, Marianne turned around to confirm her fears. There, in green polo shirt-ed glory, was her ex-fiancé Roland. A boy from the same hometown, they had been an item since her senior year of high school - homecoming royalty, the both of them - and all throughout two years of college. All had been just sunshine and rainbows until she caught Roland cheating on her the week of their would-have-been wedding. 

Her dad had been horrified when she called the whole thing off, but she didn’t care to soften things for his feelings. She dumped Roland, went far out of her way to avoid seeing him ever again, and decided love wasn’t for her.

Roland, however, still hadn’t learned to take no for an answer. 

Oblivious to her horror, as he always seemed to be, he went smoothly on. “What’s a girl like you doin on this end of town? Doesn’t look like your scene?”

“Maybe I’m not interested in country clubs anymore - that’s none of your business anyways,” she snapped. “What are you doing here anyways? Trying to find a girl to take home, since no sober woman would ever touch you?”

His expression soured momentarily, but he didn’t give her the satisfaction of a response. “You’re not here alone, are you babe?” Roland asked instead.

Marianne was not about to tell him that she was. But with Dawn in England and herself a town away from any other friends - none of whom knew she was out - she knew it’d be hard to fabricate a lie of just who she came with. Unless-

She couldn’t look over her shoulder subtly, so she had no idea where Bog might be. But suddenly, as if on a cue, she heard his gravely voice from above and behind her. “Someone botherin’ you, Tough Girl?”

Marianne turned to look at him, trying not to grin outright, but hoping he would catch on to her plan. He looked concerned, but held her eyes a moment.

“Don’t worry,” she told him sweetly. “It’s just my ex. I’ve told you about him.”

She hadn’t in fact, but Bog settled into his seat, leveling Roland with a cold look.“So ye have.” He leaned around her. “The no-good lying asshole?”

Oh, she’d have to tell him later how on the money his guess was. “The one and only.” She turned back to Roland at last. “As you can see, no I’m not here alone. This is Bog.”

Roland looked between them in some mixture of bewilderment and disgust. “You- you’re here with that? Come on, buttercup, don’t play me like that. Pretty thing like you wouldn’t be seen dead with that kind of- of beast.”

Marianne bit back a snarl. “He’s not the beast I see here,” she said coldly. “Leave us alone, all right?”

“Oh c’mon babe, I know you’re still pissed at me but that’s no reason to play these kinds of games.” He grabbed her beer from the bar. “Let me take you home, I can explain things right.” His other hand reached for her wrist.

Bog reached around her and smacked it away. “She said leave her alone,” he said, standing again. Marianne looked back at him, struck again by how tall and broad-shouldered her new friend was. The bar quieted, seeming to have noticed this drama playing out. Bog looked at Marianne for a moment, seeming concerned, but also unsure how far she wanted him to take protecting her. She was thinking that herself, and turned back to Roland, hoping he’d decide for them.

Roland took a look at Bog and for a minute looked ready to back away. Just when Bog looked ready to back down in turn, Roland succeeded in grabbing Marianne’s wrist. 

In a second of fight or flight, Marianne swung her fist, and managed to land a - albeit weak - hit across his jaw. Still the shock if not the impact, caused him to release her and stumble back. With that, she grabbed her beer out of his hand, and brought it back to the bar, and then, when Roland looked to be recovering kicked at his kneecap. Some people in the bar cheered.

Finally, a few other patrons stood, looking ready to help escort Roland out if need be, and the blond finally understood that he was outnumbered. He sent a withering look to her and Bog, and hobbled out of the bar.

“Nicely done, Tough Girl. “I think I heard a bone crunch on that last kick,” Bog said, his expression clearly impressed.

Marianne snarled, still a little too shook up to appreciate the awe in his eyes. “Yeah well that bastard deserved it.”

“No doubt.” Bog said with a nod. “That and worse.”

She gave a bitter smile. “I see he made such a lovely impression on you.” She finally took a swig of the beer at long last. To be fair, she’d been pretty distracted.

“Is there any other impression you could get?”

“Unfortunately, the other is more common. I almost married him, you know?”

“Christ. That guy, really?” Bog wrinkled his nose.

She waved a hand. “I was young. I knew not what I did.” She downed half the drink in one go, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Thanks by the way.” 

“For what?” He asked.

“For playing along.” 

He flushed and scratched the back of his neck. “Ah, no problem. Anythin to get him of yer back.”

* * *

“That’s all I can remember,” Marianne said, relaying the important details to Bog as he listened and nodded along. “What happened after that?”

“Not much,” Bog said promptly. “We talked for about fifteen or so more minutes. Little things - I told you about my mother and how she’s trying to get me married off. You told me your dad still hopes you’ll marry Roland. We quoted Love Hurts back and forth to each other.” He sighed, fingers going through his hair. “It was a little after that that you started to fade out, like you couldn’t concentrate on what you or I were saying. You’d only had the one beer and judging by how ye’d acted until then I knew ye couldn’t have been drunk.

“Brutus, he was the bartender, finally said that if that man had held on to yer drink he might have slipped something in it. I hadn’t seen it, and ye - well, ye weren’t remembering much by then anyways - but one of the girls there had some sort of chemical paper to test it for drugs and- well… ye know the rest. I took ye back here when no one ye knew answered for ye. I think ye fully passed out on the ride over”

Marianne drew her knees up, shaking a little. “He must have known I’d be there.” She wanted to kill him.

“Or is plan was to roofie any stranger he fancied there,” Bog said, his voice gentle. When Marianne said nothing to that he added. “Ye can press charges, ye know? Drugging someone is still assault, even if he didnae touch ye.”

“I might,” she said softly. “I was planning to get a restraining order on him soon anyways.”

“Everyone at that bar will stand as a witness for ye, I promise.”

Marianne looked up from her knees, from where her minds-eye was still playing out the events. She met his blue eyes, his brows drawn together in concern. He’d done all of this for her, taken her back to his place, taken care of her, made sure she’d have backup whatever happened next. And maybe he was just a decent guy, maybe he’d do this for any girl. But it still made her heart positively ache with gratitude.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

He smiled, bashful almost. Did he have any idea how few men in the world would do what he had? He’d taken an unconscious woman to his home and never once did he think about touching her himself. 

“Really, Bog, I-”

Her ringtone went off in another room, making them both jump. “Dawn,” she said to herself.

“I’ll get it for you,” Bog hopped to his feet and a second later returned with the still ringing phone. She looked at it, then at the man she so much wanted to speak with some more. Bog’s crooked smile returned. “I’ll leave ye alone to talk to her.”

“Thanks,” she said. She watched him go, a different kind of ache suddenly plucking at her heart. She pushed it out of her mind for the moment, and answered the phone to her sister.

She had a bit of a story for her, after all. 


	21. Winter Berries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marianne vs. Dark Forest Fruit. A Drabble.

Of all things about winter that surprised Marianne, it was perhaps the food that surprised her the most.

“I thought everything in the forest… died in winter,” she said, looking over the spread before her. 

“Things aren’t _dead_ just because they lose their color, Tough Girl,” the Bog King said dryly, already serving himself. 

She snorted softly. They’d had this discussion many times throughout the autumn and while Marianne could appreciate their differing opinions, she wasn’t sure she’d ever understand his. The greys and browns of the forest in winter… the frosty waste that was once the flowers of the fields… none of that felt particularly alive.

Although, she gave her lover an assessing glance. He was nothing but the dark, cool bark-tones that dominated the Dark Forest and- well, he certainly had plenty of energy.  

She pulled herself away from the trail those thoughts were taking her down, and continued. “Well I guess that’s what surprised me then; I thought everything ‘lost its color’ in the winter.” Bog’s lips curved up in a tiny - involuntary - smirk at her mimicking him. She smiled in triumph and and gestured to the dining table. “Explain.”

Now he laughed, soft and kind of rumbling, and picked up one of the berries he had taken. They were red, which is what struck Marianne as so surprising. Perhaps it was the fact that the winter was so bleak, but she was certain it was the most vibrant red she had ever seen in her life. Redder than any flower the Fields had to offer. 

It looked very pretty but it didn’t look very appetizing, if she was honest. She’d poked it a few times already and found its shell harder than most berries in the fields in the summer. Even the apples that grew high on trees in the early autumn had hide she could pierce with her sword. That didn’t make it seem very edible.

To be fair, she hadn’t tasted it yet, and had no idea what to expect. So she was putting it off with her questions.

If Bog knew her stalling tactic, he did not mention it aloud. Bless him. “Ye are right; there’s not a lot of fruit in the Forest, especially this time of year, and we do eat a lot more meat and nuts than in the warm months, but,” 

He handled the berry in both hands, before digging his claws into the skin of it and pulling it apart. It wasn’t as juicy as she expected, the texture almost closer to nuts (and that was another new thing; fairies never ate many nuts, but for Goblins it was apparently a staple in their diet). It even crunched a little when Bog bit into it. 

He held out the other half to her, grinning. “But, its good to have somethin’ different now and then.”

Marianne liked different well enough. But that did not look particularly nice. 

She took the offered… fruit. “What are they called?”

“Winter Berries.”

“Very original.”

“Yer talkin’ to someone who shares his name with the last dozen generations of kings here,” he said dryly.

Marianne laughed. Goblins were not particularly original. “Fair enough.” She turned it over in her hands. “What’s it taste like?”

Bog raised a leafy eyebrow. “Ye could see for yerself, Tough Girl.” She wasn’t sure what was in her face but it made him laugh. “Or ye could not not. Ye don’t have to try everythin’ in the Forest. Yer a fairy - it’s not all goin’ to be… meant for you.”

She could feel herself pout. “But it’s _yours_. I want a part in that.”

“Doesn’t mean makin’ yerself uncomfortable for my sake, love,” Bog said. “It’s a _fruit_ , Marianne, not my entire kingdom yer rejectin’. Not me.” When she said nothing, looking at the winter berry, his laugh came much softer. “That said, Ah… appreciate that ye want to make the Forest home. It’s- I like that,” he ended lamely. She wondered if he knew he was blushing. She wondered if she was. 

Leave it to the two of them to turn breakfast into a conversation about cultural differences… and then their relationship. They were _really bad_ at hating love.

Squaring her shoulders, Marianne made a decision and brought the fruit to her lips. Bog raised an eyebrow, and she raised one back before taking a bite-

-which, not a moment later she spit back out. 

“Attractive,” Bog observed, a strained note of laughter in his matter-of-fact tone.

“That-” Marianne heaved. “Was _disgusting_. Warn me next time!”

He was laughing now. “How would I have done that? Ah think they’re pleasant.”

“They’re- ugh- they’re so bitter! And- eugh- gods and skies above!” She reached a hand out wordlessly, and Bog acquiesced and gave her a small cup of water, still laughing.

“An’ here I thought ye liked bitter things, Tough Girl,” he said, first with a gesture at himself and then at her.

“You’re _so_ funny.”

“I think Ah liked it better when ye were worried about offendin’ me.”

She glared at him and then at the partially eaten Winter Berry. “Not making that mistake again.”

Bog’s grin was incredibly smug and incredibly fond all at once. “Yeah ye will.”

She pouted again, despite her own urge to laugh. “Yeah, I probably will.”

“I love ye,” he added. 

Marianne shook her head, but a smile won out in the end. “I love you, too.”


End file.
